Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam

Thomas McKenna. McKenna, in his first book, presents a well-researched, heavily detailed look at the 1972 North Vietnamese Army invasion of South Vietnamthe so-called Easter Offensive designed to topple the South Vietnamese government and end the war. McKenna, severely wounded near the end of the offensive, switches from the first person to the third and includes excessive military minutiae, but does an effective job of melding his own story with the bigger picture. --Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Killing the Cranes: A Reporter's Journey Through Three Decades of War in Afghanistan

Edward Girardet. European-based journalist Girardet (Afghanistan: The Soviet War) shares his personal story of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and offers disturbing parallels to America's involvement. Girardet admits to having "romanticized Afghanistan because of its harsh beauty and poetic embrace," but still offers a sobering assessment. --Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

Denis Avey, Rob Broomby. Submerged memories of a remarkable encounter in Auschwitz drove an aged British World War II veteran, Denis Avey, to reveal his plainspoken, moving story—assisted by BBC journalist Rob Broomby. Avey arranged with another Jewish prisoner, Hans, to switch clothing so that Avey could infiltrate the Jewish barracks for a night and Hans could eat and rest in the British prisoners' camp. It was a perilous ploy, but it worked, and Avey was duly horrified by the brutal conditions and life-saving mechanisms. --Kirkus (Check Catalog)

Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret Special Forces War in Iraq

Mark Urban. BBC Newsnight diplomatic and defense editor Urban takes a cerebral approach to establishing the unique challenges faced by both British SAS and American Special Forces (SF) as the Iraq occupation developed, unraveled and was ultimately stabilized by the "surge." The prickly relationship between the two countries helps the author focus his narrative on the British forces—he explains that they had to grapple with the controversial strategies of American Joint Special Operations Command head General Stanley McChrystal, a "soldier-monk" who favored "industrial counter-terrorism," a constant cycle of missions to counter the evolving threat.--Kirkus (Check Catalog)

Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice

Gerald Steinacher. Steinacher has meticulously researched how so many Nazi war criminals were able to escape justice after World War II. While its title may lead some readers to expect a dashing adventure tale of espionage and escape, this book is really about the bureaucratic chaos that paralyzed the Allied governments in the early postwar period.--Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Lake George Shipwrecks and Sunken History

Zarzynski, Joseph W, Benway, Bob. Lake George: Its Sunken History Revealed is an assortment of short tales that focus on the sunken heritage of one of North America's most historic waterways the 32 mile long Lake George in upstate New York. Each of the stories focuses on a shipwreck, a maritime mystery, or an underwater archeological discovery and investigation, and will be accompanied by one or two historic images or modern underwater photos.--Publisher Marketing (Check Catalog)

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

David McCullough. One of Americas most popular historians and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, McCullough (1776) has hit the historical jackpot. Travelers before the telephone era loved to write letters and journals, and McCullough has turned this avalanche of material into an entertaining chronicle of several dozen 19th-century Americans who went to Paris, an immense, supremely civilized city flowing with ideas, the arts, and elegance, where no one spit tobacco juice or defaced public property.--Publisher's Weekly. (Check Catalog)

Last men out : the true story of America's heroic final hours in Vietnam

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. An exciting, focused account of the bitter evacuation by helicopter of the last Marines securing the U.S. embassy compound in Saigon on April 30, 1975. The Americans washed their bloody hands of the Vietnam War with the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973, which stipulated withdrawal from South Vietnam except for a handful of Marine Security Guards (MSGs) and other personnel posted at the embassy and at a defense outpost (DOA) adjacent to the airport in downtown Saigon.--Kirkus (Check Catalog)

The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo. Rapa Nui (aka the Easter Islands) have long been thought to illustrate how human environmental overreach led to collapse, as advanced monument builders undermined the ecology, beginning an inevitable slide. The authors make a counter-argument that "the problems were social, not a result of environmental ruin.--Kirkus (Check Catalog)