Sergeant Paul S. Porter experienced combat like few soldiers have lived to write about. Serving with the Fourth Armored Division in Company B, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion, Porter and his light machine gun squad entered the front line of World War II on July 17, 1944, and were soon in the thick of the action. The Fourth fought through the hedgerows of Normandy before leading Patton's Third Army in its breakout and pursuit toward the German border. The slugfests that followed as the Fourth advanced through the mud and battered villages of the Alsace-Lorraine region were Porter's most difficult of the war. For his heroic actions in combat on December 4, 1944, Sergeant Porter was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. This memoir presents the full story of Porter's extraordinary service in his own candid words, illustrated with family photographs. He paints a vivid portrait of a young man coping with the unique pressures of the battlefield. His candor when describing his officers and fellow soldiers provides a sober view of the dynamics within a team when comprised of individuals with diverse backgrounds and motives. Sergeant Porter has an intense desire to survive yet possesses a resolve to enter the fray and engage in combat eye-to-eye with the enemy.

In this intimate portrait of an extraordinary father-son relationship, Mark K. Shriver discovers the moral principles that guided his legendary father and applies them to his own life When Sargent "Sarge" Shriver—founder of the Peace Corps and architect of President Johnson's War on Poverty—died in 2011 after a valiant fight with Alzheimer's, thousands of tributes poured in from friends and strangers worldwide. These tributes, which extolled the daily kindness and humanity of "a good man," moved his son Mark far more than those who lauded Sarge for his big-stage, headline-making accomplishments. After a lifetime searching for the path to his father's success in the public arena, Mark instead turns to a search for the secret of his father's joy, his devotion to others, and his sense of purpose. Mark discovers notes and letters from Sarge; hears personal stories from friends and family that zero in on the three guiding principles of Sarge's life—faith, hope, and love—and recounts moments with Sarge that now take on new value and poignancy. In the process, Mark discovers much about himself, as a father, as a husband, and as a social justice advocate. A Good Man is an inspirational and deeply personal story about a son discovering the true meaning of his father's legacy.

The new Inspector Sam Blackstone mystery. July 1900, New York City. Sam Blackstone has gone to New York to pick up a prisoner, but he soon finds himself drafted in to investigate the murder of Inspector O'Brien who is famed for rooting out police corruption. Working with an enthusiastic young detective who worshipped O'Brien, Blackstone scours the city in search of the killer. And the more he searches, the more he becomes convinced that the police department doesn't really want the murder to be solved.

"I enjoyed Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel so much I could hardly put it down. It ought to be widely read as an excellent way of recalling World War II." -Hans L. Trefousse Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York "Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel paints an absorbing picture of the daily life of America's greatest generation. Vets will find themselves reliving their own experiences-the boredom, the loneliness, the fear, and the role of fate in life and death. For the rest of us, Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel is social history at its best." -Dr. Stanley J. Michalak Senior Associate, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia Professor Emeritus of Government, Franklin and Marshall College "A vivid story brought to realistic life." -Midwest Book Review "Dear Mom, Dad & Ethel delicately mixes fiction and history to tell the story of an American air corpsman during World War II. His precious letters enhance a grand book deserving warm appreciation. People from my hometown will be as moved and fascinated as many Americans who will, no doubt, eagerly read it." -Jacques Wynants, Belgian Historian Author of Verviers 1940 and Verviers Libéré PLOT SUMMARY On October 7, l942, Don Quix enlists in the Air Corps. He's slated to be an aerial gunner, but his flying dreams are shattered when he's caught AWOL with buddy Ken Jackson. Don manages to become a radio truck supervisor in a fighter control squadron while Ken goes to a demolition unit. As an army engineer, Ken barely survives D-Day on Normandy's "Bloody Omaha." During a baseball game in a French forest, Don moves his head slightly, saving himself from a sniper's bullet. Arriving in Verviers, Belgium in September 1944, Don and his fellow radio men endure frequent buzz bomb attacks. Due to a miscalculation in army strategy, they find themselves on the front lines during the Battle of the Bulge. Don's reunion with Ken, now a tech sergeant with a bomb disposal outfit, is marred by tragedy, dampening Don's torrid love affair with beautiful seamstress Denise Vervier. Denise's husband, sent to a forced labor camp in 1940, is presumed dead. When he unexpectedly returns, Don and Denise face a heartbreaking choice.

Dennis Bright is an imaginative six-foot-four freckled and bespectacled redhead who lives in two worlds. In the public world he works as a watchman in the Scepter Roast Coffee Factory in Somesuch, New Jersey. In that world he avoids catching thieves and he makes the rounds, carrying a clock that doesnt keep time. In the private world of the mind he accompanies Robert Derrick, his handsome alter ego, on the grim progression that leads from North Carolina to the Gettysburg battlefield. The clash of worlds is complicated by a coworkers obsession with the inanities of professional wrestling, by the ghostly presences of generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, by the emergence of a fictional character into reality, and by Denniss life-altering crush on the beautiful Julie Hanks. Looming over both worlds is the threat of the coffee heist of the century. It will take all of Denniss resources to guard the factory. And it will take all his resources to overcome competition from an unlikely source and land in the arms of a woman who, like divinity, supplies life in the same instant she takes his breath away.

“We only become aware of a void when we attempt to fill it.” That had long been the mantra of Major Warren “Ren” Chevalier, a decorated former soldier, now working security and logistics at the Chinese Embassy in D.C. Over the years, Ren developed a reputation for solving problems before they had the chance to develop. Since the passing of his late wife, Ren tried everything humanly possible to compensate for that loss by being the best father he could to their only son, Noah. Despite his efforts, it never seemed to work. Against his wishes, Noah relocated to Asia, hoping to blaze a new trail. The one person he tried to keep closest, was the same one who wanted to be around him the least. As their conversations became more infrequent, Ren's worst fears were realized when he received a phone call that his son was missing and answers were in limited supply. Intent to locate his boy by any means necessary, Ren arrives in town ready for action; his vicious inquiries leading him down a rabbit hole of havoc. With the world (he so desperately tried to keep from falling apart) crumbling all around him—the only thing left was to pray for his enemies. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.”