Not that long ago I was attending a retirement celebration for a friend of mine. He’d completed 25 years of service with a metropolitan police department and was moving on to better things. That particular police department (that he’d retired from) served a jurisdiction that was relatively well recognized for its high crime rates and the citizenry’s near complete lack of regard for the law – much less the law enforcers. As a sad side note, when he’d been hired 25 years ago, the jurisdiction had a 20-year retirement program, but they changed it to 25 when he was about 15 years in and didn’t “grandfather” anyone anywhere. People who had been around more than 20 but less than 25 were allowed to “retire early” but folks with less than twenty – even one day less when the law went into affect – had to get to 25 for their retirement. Setting all that aside, at my friend’s retirement party I met a Minister. The unique thing about this particular minister was that he had previously served as a Homicide Investigator in the same jurisdiction where my friend had retired from. He had seen some of the worst our society had to offer – and it hadn’t shaken his faith. It had made his faith stronger. Continue reading Peace Officer Ministries, Inc.
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Many an author (including yours truly) has written a book about what the world would be like in a post-nuclear-holocaust environment. A few have written about what America would be like in a post-governmental-collapse setting. In this series (of two books so far) American Apocalypse, the author known only as NOVA creates a post-economic-collapse America. Oddly enough – or not odd at all when you think about it – the day-to-day challenges faced aren’t all that different. While radiation poisoning might not be a concern, simple survival necessities such as food, shelter and clean water certainly are (or would be). My first thought when I got these books was, “Oh, another holocaust survival series.” After reading the first chapter of the first book, American Apocalypse: The Collapse Begins, I was hooked and intrigued. Once again I’m quite happy to have my survival plans and preparations in place. Continue reading The “American Apocalypse” Series Review Review by: Chief William “Bill” Harvey Once again Brian Willis has collected a variety of contributors for this work. It is twenty-nine chapters or vignettes, written by twenty-two top trainers. Each was posed with the assignment to offer their best insights to pass on to today’s young warriors. Now I am very fortunate to actually call most of these contributors’ colleagues and friends. Although you may not know of them, I assure you that they are pouring out their souls to you. Continue reading Book Review: If I Knew Then 2 If you visit the Robert B. Parker author page on Amazon.com you’ll get 91 listings (as I type this). Born in 1932, Parker died January 19, 2010 but has had a number of books released by his publisher since his passing. He started writing the Spenser detective novels in 1971. After making the Spenser series a huge success he launched several others to include Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone. Sunny, a female private detective, and Jesse, a Chief of Police in small town Paradise, Massachusetts. Both were successful, although short-lived, series (due to his untimely death), and it appears he may have had another off-shoot planned: Sixkill. Continue reading “Sixkill” by Robert B. Parker: A Book Review This week’s recreational review is going to be limited in scope and completely dedicated to the organization Honoring American Veterans Afield (HAVA). At SHOT Show I visited their booth and received two DVDs for review. Both are shown below. I have interviewed their representatives and watched their DVDs. I am comfortable enough supporting their organization and goals that I’m going to simply use their own words to describe what they do and how. Check them out. Support them. It’s good work. Yes, this is a shameless plug and you all can add in any comments you want criticizing me for such. BUT, I wanted to look back at my first two fiction works and maybe familiarize our readers with them. I do so now because, in short order, part three will be released / published and the trilogy as a whole will be revamped into a new novel. Together the fiction trilogy introduces a new twist on vampires, witches and government / church conspiracies. Now if I can just find a way to work in werewolves… Continue reading “A Cop’s Nightmare” Books First let me say that I’ve been a fan of Dean Koontz’s books ever since I read Watchers so long ago. I firmly believed, after reading that book, that Koontz had an imagination I’d enjoy reading the products of. After Watchers was Midnight and after that… well, I can’t remember the order I read them in but each was enjoyable. While I still read his books, I unfortunately think they’ve become a bit “production line”; not quite predictable but built along the same lines if you will. What The Night Knows was an enjoyable read but definitely fell within that “production line” category. I had the great pleasure to meet Kung-Fu Master Wayson Johnny Tsai at a writers’ conference a few months back. In truth I thought he was a tad out of place. The room was full of “gun writers” and here sat a martial artist who looked for all the world like he’d be more comfortable (and better suited) to teaching Kung-Fu on a South Pacific island. Never judge a book by its cover was the lesson I had to relearn… again… and I’m just glad I didn’t stick my foot in my mouth when I met him. As the conference went on I learned that Johnny had developed several DVDs on self-defense as well as designing his own defense pen and a knife (now he has another knife design out as well). Continue reading CUMA Practical Tactical DVDs Review by: Ralph Mroz With A Vengeance by Marcus Wynne Marcus Wynne has been a paratrooper, diplomatic bodyguard, Federal Air Marshal, close combat instructor, emergency medical technician, freelance writer, training and security consultant, and a cook. He’s traveled to more than 50 countries, many of them listed in Robert Young Pelton’s best-selling book, The World’s Most Dangerous Places. His exploits in government service include hunting North Korean Special Forces units in the Korean DMZ, coordinating the American Embassy evacuations in Haiti during the 1991 coup, and leading a counter-terrorist Federal Air Marshal unit during the Gulf War. In the course of his many adventures, he’s fallen off the highest mountain in England and raced mountain bikes in the Italian Dolomites with the BMW Race Team. Continue reading “With A Vengeance” Book Review
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I was saddened by the death of Robert B. Parker earlier this year and as a long-reading fan of his Spenser series of novels, and as a new owner of a Kindle, I felt compelled to go back and make sure that all of the Spenser books were in my Kindle library. As I have been going back through and adding the books – in order from his first (The Godwulf Manuscript) to his most recent (Painted Ladies) I’ve also been rereading them. When I got to Early Autumn I was moved to write a review of the book. Although it was published 1992 it is still a good read and I felt that several lessons are offered in it that are worth learning.