In the spring of 1944, Ernest Hemingway travelled to London and then to France to cover the Second World War for Colliers Magazine. He had resisted this kind of journalism for the early period of the war but now threw himself into the thick of events. He flew missions with the RAF, went on a landing craft on Omaha Beach on D-Day, involved himself in the French Resistance forces and famously rode into the still dangerous streets of liberated Paris. He was at the Siegfried Line in the Huertgen Forest when the 22nd Regiment lost nearly every man sent into the fight. This invigorating narrative is, in parallel, an investigation into Hemingway's subsequent work-much of it stemming from his wartime experience-which shaped the latter stages of his career.

Hollywood, 1934. Prohibition is finally over, but there is still plenty of crime for an ambitious young private eye to investigate. Though he has a slightly checkered past, Riley Fitzhugh is well connected in the film industry and is hired by a major producer-whose lovely girlfriend has disappeared. He also is hired to recover a stolen Monet, a crime that results in two murders initially, with more to come. Along the way Riley investigates the gambling ships anchored off L.A., gets involved with the girlfriend of the gangster running one of the ships, and disposes of the body of a would-be actor who assaults Riley's girlfriend. He also meets an elegant English art history professor from UCLA who helps Riley authenticate several paintings and determine which ones are forgeries. Riley lives at the Garden of Allah Hotel, the favorite watering place of screenwriters, and he meets and unknowingly assists many of them with their plots. Incidentally one of these gents, whose nom de plume is 'Hobey Baker,' might actually be F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . Evoking the classic hardboiled style, The Monet Murders is a charmingly cosy murder mystery by a novelist whose "lucid, beautifully written books are a pleasure to read." (The Wall Street Journal)

Hollywood, 1934. Prohibition is finally over, but there is still plenty of crime for an ambitious young private eye to investigate. Though he has a slightly checkered past, Riley Fitzhugh is well connected in the film industry and is hired by a major producer-whose lovely girlfriend has disappeared. He also is hired to recover a stolen Monet, a crime that results in two murders initially, with more to come. Along the way Riley investigates the gambling ships anchored off L.A., gets involved with the girlfriend of the gangster running one of the ships, and disposes of the body of a would-be actor who assaults Riley's girlfriend. He also meets an elegant English art history professor from UCLA who helps Riley authenticate several paintings and determine which ones are forgeries. Riley lives at the Garden of Allah Hotel, the favorite watering place of screenwriters, and he meets and unknowingly assists many of them with their plots. Incidentally one of these gents, whose nom de plume is 'Hobey Baker,' might actually be F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . Evoking the classic hardboiled style, The Monet Murders is a charmingly cosy murder mystery by a novelist whose "lucid, beautifully written books are a pleasure to read." (The Wall Street Journal)

In the spring of 1944, Hemingway traveled to London and then to France to cover World War II for Colliers Magazine. Obviously he was a little late in arriving. Why did he go? He had resisted this kind of journalism for much of the early period of the war, but when he finally decided to go, he threw himself into the thick of events and so became a conduit to understanding some of the major events and characters of the war. He flew missions with the RAF (in part to gather material for a novel); he went on a landing craft on Omaha Beach on D-Day; he went on to involve himself in the French Resistance forces in France and famously rode into the still dangerous streets of liberated Paris. And he was at the German Siegfried line for the horrendous killing ground of the Huertgen Forest, in which his favored 22nd Regiment lost nearly man they sent into the fight. After that tragedy, it came to be argued, he was never the same. This invigorating narrative is also, in a parallel fashion, an investigation into Hemingway's subsequent work-much of it stemming from his wartime experience-which shaped the latter stages of his career in dramatic fashion.

In February 1861, the twelve-year-old son of Arizona rancher John Ward was kidnapped by Apaches. Ward followed their trail and reported the incident to patrols at Fort Buchanan, blaming a band of Chiricahuas led by the infamous warrior Cochise. Though Ward had no proof that Cochise had kidnapped his son, Lt. George Bascom organized a patrol and met with the Apache leader, who, not suspecting anything was amiss, had brought along his wife, his brother, and two sons. Despite Cochise's assertions that he had not taken the boy and his offer to help in the search, Bascom immediately took Cochise's family hostage and demanded the return of the boy. An incensed Cochise escaped the meeting tent amidst flying bullets and vowed revenge.What followed that precipitous encounter would ignite a Southwestern frontier war between the Chiricahuas and the US Army that would last twenty-five years. In the days following the initial melee, innocent passersby-Apache, white, and Mexican-would be taken as hostages on both sides, and almost all of them would be brutally slaughtered. Cochise would lead his people valiantly for ten years of the decades-long war.Thousands of lives would be lost, the economies of Arizona and New Mexico would be devastated, and in the end, the Chiricahua way of life would essentially cease to exist.In a gripping narrative that often reads like an old-fashioned Western novel, Terry Mort explores the collision of these two radically different cultures in a masterful account of one of the bloodiest conflicts in American frontier history.

The best baseball novel of the season - ANY season. No fans are more perpetually disappointed than those of the Chicago Cubs-a team that has not won a World Series since 1908. And chief among the forlorn is Jack Frost. From his assigned seat in the cafeteria at the Bide Awhile Rest Home, Jack reads the sports pages every day and checks out the standings. In the middle of June, the Cubs are already thirteen and a half games out. Last place again-or rather, still. Into this sea of depression drops one Clarence Beazely, a new resident at the home and a baseball fan. But Beazely is not your everyday fan, nor is he your everyday rest home resident. He has extraordinary powers, and in a very friendly way he offers Jack a tantalizing deal. Of course it comes at a cost, but if the price seems a little steep, does it really matter as long as the Cubs might have a chance to be... WORLD CHAMPIONS? "Mort makes a fascinating read out of every subject he takes up." The Associated Press. "If onetest of Mort's] skill is to keep the reader turning pages after he guesses the ending, the acid test is to get a reader hooked even though he knows what happens before he opens the book. The Washington Times

"Measured by the numbers engaged, the Battle of Quebec was but a heavy skirmish; measured by the results, it was one of the great battles of the world." - Francis Parkman. When the British defeated the French at Quebec in 1759, they not only guaranteed Britain's acquisition of Canada but also, unwittingly, paved the way for the American Revolution. But this is a larger story than just the single day of battle on September 13, 1759. The final action was the culmination of a summer-long campaign involving a series of engagements between the British Army, American Rangers and the Royal Navy on one side, and the French regulars, the Canadian militia and Indian allies on the other. As the weeks passed and the British became increasingly frustrated, the campaign degenerated into total war in which civilians and combatants suffered alike. The two commanders - Wolfe and Montcalm - could hardly have been more different in background and personality. Yet they shared an intense professionalism, dedication to duty and, ironically, a similar fate. In this carefully researched novel Terry Mort reconstructs the action of the campaign that climaxed in the dramatic events on the Plains of Abraham.

"It's not my fight," said Ethan Grey. It didn't matter. Mexico was at war, and he was in it. He'd wanted a cruise in warm waters, a chance to forget the war he'd just fought, the War Between the States. But the ship he chose so casually had another mission, and like it or not Ethan Grey was on board. The storms at sea, the battles with enemy ships, the long trip overland through hostile territory, the flight from French mercenaries; it became his war, too. But this time, at least it was simpler. It was just a fight for his friends. And for Maria. The Voyage of the Parzival is based on an earlier book by Terry Mort entitled, Shipment to Mexico. "Mort makes a fascinating read out of every subject he takes up." - The Associated Press "Terry Mort is an author extraordinaire." - Ann LaFarge - The Hudson Valley News

A fascinating account of a dramatic, untold chapter in Hemingway's life--his pursuit of German U-boats during World War II.

From the summer of 1942 until the end of 1943, Ernest Hemingway lived in Havana, Cuba, and spent much of his time in the Gulf Stream hunting German sub- marines in his wooden fishing boat, "The Pilar." This phase of Hemingway's life has only been briefly touched upon in biographies of Hemingway but proved to be of enormous importance to him. At the time, the U-boats were torpedo- ing dozens of Allied tankers each month and threatened America's ability to wage war in Europe. Hemingway's patrols were supported by the U.S. Navy, and he viewed these danger- ous missions as both patriotic duty and pure adventure. But they were more than that: they provided some literary basis for "The Old Man and the Sea" and "Islands in the Stream."

Terry Mort's sensitive portrait of Hemingway also brings us his wife Martha Gellhorn (who was scornful of Hemingway's patrols), a naval account of the U-boat attacks in the vicinity, and a perceptive contemplation of what the patrols meant to Hemingway the man as well as the artist. Drawing on the writer's letters, Gellhorn's memoirs, and the sailor's log of "The Pilar," Mort reveals an important chapter in the life of a""literary legend.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his loyal readership as Mark Twain, led a life as rich as his collection of published works. Over the span of a lifetime, his growth from a small-town Midwestern boy to a famed writer and lecturer was reflected in the dozens of positions he held in the literary field across the United States, in addition to about double the number of cities he roved through to get each job done.
"I began to get tired of staying in one place so long," wrote Twain in his work "Roughing It. His readers are still reaping the benefits of his restlessness today. Here, in Mark Twain on Travel, is a collection of his ever-astute observations of nineteenth-century America and Europe, as he experienced them firsthand.
As if packed within his luggage or perched atop the pages of his journal, observe the humor in Twain's best travel writing. Listen in on conversations with fellow wanderers, from big-city dwellers to steamboat captains. Never departing without pen and paper, Twain's continual movements across the continents and their bordering oceans fueled him to share insights that made him an icon of American writing.

In the summer of 1874, Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer led an expedition of some 1000 troops and more than one hundred wagons into the Black Hills of South Dakota. This fascinating work of narrative history tells the little-known story of this exploratory mission and reveals how it set the stage for the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn two years later.
What is the significance of this obscure foray into the Black Hills? The short answer, as the author explains, is that Custer found gold. This discovery in the context of the worst economic depression the country had yet experienced spurred a gold rush that brought hordes of white prospectors to the Sioux's sacred grounds. The result was the trampling of an 1868 treaty that had granted the Black Hills to the Sioux and their inevitable retaliation against the white invasion.
The author brings the era of the Grant administration to life, with its "peace policy" of settling the Indians on reservations, corrupt federal Indian Bureau, Gilded Age excesses, the building of the western railroads, the white settlements that followed the tracks, the Crash of 1873, mining ventures, and the clash of white and Indian cultures with diametrically opposed values.
The discovery of gold in the Black Hills was the beginning of the end of Sioux territorial independence. By the end of the book it is clear why the Sioux leader Fast Bear called the trail cut by Custer to the Black Hills "thieves' road."

Highlights a little-known expedition of General George Custer to the Black Hills of South Dakota, showing how it set the stage for later conflict with the Sioux and the Battle of Little Bighorn. This fascinating narrative history tells the story of General George Armstrong Custer's 1874 expedition into the Black Hills of South Dakota and reveals how it set the stage for the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn two years later. What is the significance of this obscure foray into the Black Hills? The short answer, as the author explains, is that Custer found gold. This discovery in the context of the worst economic depression the country had yet experienced spurred a gold rush that brought hordes of white prospectors to the Sioux's sacred grounds. The result was the trampling of an 1868 treaty that had granted the Black Hills to the Sioux and their inevitable retaliation against the white invasion. The author brings the era of the Grant administration to life, with its "peace policy" of settling the Indians on reservations, corrupt federal Indian Bureau, Gilded Age excesses, the building of the western railroads, the white settlements that followed the tracks, the Crash of 1873, mining ventures, and the clash of white and Indian cultures with diametrically opposed values. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills was the beginning of the end of Sioux territorial independence. By the end of the book it is clear why the Sioux leader Fast Bear called the trail cut by Custer to the Black Hills "thieves' road."

"The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time," writes Jack London, accurately proclaiming the very ingredients of his full, passionate lifestyle.
Bearing a name that is now synonymous with adventure, London seemed to fear nothing, constantly stretching his comfortable limits--composing his classic short stories at one thousand words every morning, sailing across the Pacific Ocean on voyages both for pleasure and profit, horseback riding, continual entertaining at home in Glen Ellen, California, barroom socializing and debating, marrying twice, frequent lecturing, and operating a ranch--all with about four or five hours of sleep a night to make it possible.
Rising from the low-income factory-worker community of West Oakland, California, London's romantic writings on adventure found at sea, or in Alaska, or in the fields and factories of California appealed to the everyman--millions of readers around the world. Here, in" Jack London on Adventure," are excerpts from his well-loved works, which were the result of his restless quest for experience, combined with "his observations of unalterable facts," as editor Terry Mort writes in his introduction. Lose yourself in the sheer unending quietude of the North in" "White Fang"" and ""The White Silence""; enter into the listless, worried mind of an elder in ""The League of the Old Men""; prepare to sail around the world for seven years' time alongside the author-turned-captain, himself, in ""The Cruise of the Snark,"" where the famed boat is built with each dollar earned from London's writings; and peek into the observations of seasoned sailors and the foolish passengers they carry in ""The Sea Wolf."" Mort ends with the statement, "A complex man and artist is hard to capture in a single image," but in terms of the unlikely and unknown, London's works here capture the thrill that burned in him so brightly.

Though he made his name and his fortune as an author of Western novels, Zane Grey's best writing has to do with fishing. There he was free from the conventions of the Western genre and the expectations of the market, and he was able to blend his talent for narrative with his keen eye for detail and humor, much of it self-deprecating, into books and articles that are both informative and exciting. His first published fishing article appeared in 1902, and he continued to write books and articles on angling until his death in 1939. From the trout streams and bass rivers of the East to the steelhead rivers of the Northwest; from the offshore angling of Nova Scotia and California to the unexplored waters of New Zealand and the South Sea islands, Grey was constantly in motion, sometimes fishing three hundred days a year, always writing to support his passion. At one time or another he held more than a dozen saltwater records, yet he always returned from the big game to the freshwater streams he had learned to love as a boy. This book is a selection of some of Grey's best work, and the stories and excerpts reveal a man who understood that angling is more than an activity-it is a way of seeing, a way of being more fully a part of the natural world. No writer exceeds Zane Grey's ability to integrate the fishing experience with a world he saw so vividly.

"If I were asked to teach someone to fish with a fly I would require that he read this book first.""One of the acid tests of an introductory book...is that the text allow the reader to learn a skill independent of the illustrations. Fly casting is very difficult to teach in person, and even more so in print, yet this book contains the best, the most interesting, and the most effective introduction to fly casting I have ever read.""I think Terry [Mort] puts the emphasis in the right places.... He doesn't neglect entomology, but he devotes twice as many words to trout behavior, a far more interesting and useful pastime if you must introduce a scientific bent into your fishing.""If this is your first fly-fishing book, you are very fortunate - you're starting off on the right track. If you've read others before, I think you'll agree with me that you wish this had been your first." - from the foreword by Tom Rosenbauer (51/2 X 81/4, 224 pages, illustrations)

Samuel Longhorne Clemens (1835-1910), known to most as Mark Twain and the author of such classics as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, was a quintessential American writer who spent much of his life travelling the world and drawing inspiration from everything he saw and experienced - colourful characters, diverse cultures, and a variety of exciting adventures. Mark Twain on Travel is a timeless collection of some of his best writings on the subject, and with excerpts from his works including The Innocents Abroad, A Tramp Abroad, Life on the Mississippi, Roughing It, and Following the Equator, this is a must-read for travel buffs everywhere.