When retired Special Forces soldier Kurt Andrew Atwood receives a call in July of 1991 from "The Company," he can't imagine what the CIA needs from him. Now running a security firm, Atwood is older and has changed since his service in the Vietnam War.

He discovers he's being recruited to run an unauthorized, undercover mission to rescue General Fong and his family from Vietnam. Atwood clearly remembers Fong and his involvement in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. Fong helped stage a hoax attack on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to escalate the war and persuade President Johnson to send more troops. Now, authorities fear someone will discover Fong's collaboration and wage an attack against the CIA.

Atwood is more than willing to attempt the mission, as he has some unfinished business from the Vietnam War days. He assumes the identity of Paul Carper, a casual tourist on his way to Bangkok, and returns to a country that holds a plethora of both painful and joyous memories. But his efforts must concentrate on the dangerous task of getting Fong, his wife, and their two daughters out of Vietnam and to safety in the United States.

"Carl and I must make twenty trips back and forth carrying wounded to those who can offer comfort and medical aid. Each time I look at our litter-now covered with blood and gore-and wonder whether we've done our bit in time. Others scurry about clearing the aftermath of the battle. Burial details are already working to inter the dead before daylight and scavengers descend on this killing ground. The smell is worse than any hog butchering I was ever a party to. Already I can hear the buzz of flies and see the beady little eyes of small animals drawn to the smell of fresh blood. We stand over one soldier writhing in this "sacred ground" as the sergeant called it and lift him ever so gently onto the litter. These men's blood may make the ground sacred, but by now I can see this place for what it actually is-a sea of Virginia mud trying to clutch and claim the dying. This wounded boy wears the blue of the Feds. He's calling out a name and reaching toward me, grasping at me with his trembling fingers as I lean closer. A strange feeling of comradeship comes to me when I realize how like my own fellow soldiers this Yankee fighter looks-just another man doing his duty, whatever his beliefs may be."

Set during the 2nd World War, Mushroom Cloud is an account of what could have happened if Germany had developed the nuclear bomb before America and the Americans could not support, or help Britain anymore. What if Adolf Hitler had such a hold over Britain that Churchill had to surrender to Germany? What would have become of the Royal Family, the Prime Minister and the government? But most importantly, what would have happened to the British people and their way of life? This gripping, sometimes harrowing story follows the lives of four different groups of people as they react to a cataclysmic event in war-torn Europe. In the cause of freedom, some risk their lives, some lose their lives and others find true love. Alan Whichello's first novel demonstrates a natural story-telling ability, which will have the reader hooked from the start

When Mark, an American soldier serving in Germany in the early 1950s, meets Lauren, a young German girl, their lives change forever. But love is never easy, and for these two it may well be impossible. In a world still reeling from the horrors of war and genocide, the budding love between a Jewish soldier and a German Catholic girl is controversial and dangerous.

It is a time in history that demands the same dedication and focus on duty as in the war years. Both of the lovers are pressured from all sides, and each feels the impossibility of their love-but neither can deny or forget it. Mark is faced with military duty, a possible court martial, and a threatening sociopath. Lauren is expected to play the role of the dutiful German daughter who follows the path dictated by her father. In addition to her obligations to her father, she is expected to focus only on school, work, her church, and her duty to country.

Their very different backgrounds stand as obstacles they can't disregard. Neither is so naive as to ignore the considerable cultural and societal pressure they face. But the heart does not always listen to logic, and soon they are irresistibly drawn together-come what may.

Despite all the many forces they face, can they find the strength to stay together in a world that propels them apart?

The spawn of the devil, the elite of the Russian Red Army were playing football with what looked like a doll's head. They were using the head of a newborn dead baby. He tore himself away as his abdomen muscles contracted and reached to their maximum. He felt sick but there was nothing more to give, his stomach had been empty for days. If a token gesture of defiance was required. He finally bought up his own bile.

Blair Beebe, M.D. Medical lessons from Vietnam; what did we learn? Almost fifty years after the beginning of American involvement in the Vietnam War, we still remain embroiled in military actions that generate disease, disability, and death. Frontline physicians who were in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Vietnam faced the medical consequences of war every day. My new novel, Doc Lucas USN, based on real people and real events, brings the war down to a human scale, one person at a time. History gives us statistics and dates, but fiction helps us to better understand the meaning behind those facts. One of my old professors defined history as "lies we tell about dead people." We understand more from reading Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Margaret Mitchell, and Stephen Ambrose than we ever learned from dry history textbooks. Paradoxically, the truth comes out in fiction. During my time in Vietnam, and for many years after, I listened to stories from other physicians who served during the war and from naval aviators and marines who faced combat every day. I also heard different points of view from Vietnamese civilians who had come to America to escape the chaos after the war. Their eyewitness accounts are the true history, but unless someone writes them down, we lose them forever. Moreover, individual stories may have little meaning to us if they lack context. I've often heard both veterans and civilians say, "I don't talk about my experiences, because anyone who wasn't there could never understand how bad it was." That's why we need a novel to give us a complete account in an organized way. Each character and each scene moves the action to develop a central theme about the war. We want more than anecdotes. We want to understand the how and the why of the unfolding tragedy. Doc Lucas not only recounts the stories, he lives them. We feel his anxiety, his terror, and at times, his joy. When things go wrong, we know why, and we can feel his despair. In the good times, and there are many, we laugh along with him. In the end, Doc Lucas learns important lessons about himself and his values centered on human rights and the relief of suffering. He emerges from the war better equipped to take his place with stronger convictions about his role in his society.