Guns Books

I never read Gordon's first book, but read this one on a long rainy day and couldn't put it down. I absolutely loved it, and am thoroughly enjoying The Company You Keep as well. What an engaging, interesting writer.

Not fully understanding the American Judicial system, this was a little hard to grasp at first. However, the book really had quite a few good characters, and some interesting plots and sub plots. A definate 5 stars, especially if you understand how the US DOJ is put together.

This book was a major disappointment but,fortunately, I got it from the library so I only lost a little time. The characters were without dimension, shallow and not the sort one could identify with. I finally got to the point where I could not put up with these people at the snail's pace of the plot. Maybe I gave up too soon; maybe not.

A good book overall but it helped that I had read his other novel "Sacrifice of Isaac" previously. Some characters and plot lines do sort of carry over. This is not a sequel but it doesn't hurt to be familiar with his previous work. Neil Gordon is definitely on his way to greatness!

Gordon's "The Sacrifice of Isaac" is one of my favorite books. I really, really wanted to like this book, but I found it to be too convoluted and the motives of the character to be questionable. I hope his next book will be an improvement.

Good plot and believeable story. It has all the right theories and the multitude of players; even Gen. Lansdale. The story, however did not flow smoothly.

"The Guns of Dallas" is one of the best novels I have read in some time. The author did his research and the result is edge of the chair suspense, a bit of romance and perhaps finally some truth regarding that fateful day. This reader could not put the book down. I give it five stars.

Douglas Herman is also a prolific Internet columnist and one of the most widely quoted. His writings here have a flair and an edge not found elsewhere - and truth.

Annie Berg
Los Angeles, CA

Where to start? As the author of The Guns of Dallas, I wanted to write an entertaining, eye-popping, fact based account of what likely happened that day in Dealey Plaza, the day JFK was killed. So begins the story of the dying assassin Jimmy Jeremiah and his colorful recollection to news reporter Daniel Pilgrim of what happened that day.

"There were four teams of two each. Eight altogether. Four guns and four spotters," Jeremiah explained.

Months after I wrote those lines, and about a year after reading James Hepburn's (A pseudonym) intriguing book called "Farewell America," I happened to read former US Marine sniper Craig Roberts' book, "Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks At Dealey Plaza." Amazingly, Roberts came to the exact same conclusion as I. Multiple shooters-probably four teams--killed Kennedy.

Not surprisingly, "Farewell America," a French Intelligence authored book written in 1967 about the JFK hit, was banned in America. Of course, lone gunman apologists can never quite explain how a dead Oswald could influence government censorship four years after his death.

A couple of excerpts from The Guns Of Dallas-

"Tell me," said Pilgrim, "Were many people involved?"
Jimmy laughed. "Well, in a conspiracy like this one, you can have lots of people in on it. Maybe hundreds."
"How can a conspiracy to kill the president have hundreds of people involved and not get revealed?"
"Fear."
The reporter looked incredulous. "Fear? Is that all?"
"It's more than enough. Think about it: a hundred people know about a plot to kill a president, even a thousand. Fear of retribution will keep the one person from ratting on the 999. And all the other folks involved will deny the statements of that one whistle blower, ridicule him, deny him. He's dead physically, socially or psychically if he talks."

Jeremiah realizes he was but a small part of the plot, yet an ongoing plot that continues today, more than forty years later. Indeed, by confessing his pivotal part to Pilgrim, he puts the reporter in danger. We see examples of this everyday, where an investigative news reporter is "suicided" out for knowing too damn much about the deep dark secrets of the shadow government. For example, evidence indicates news reporter Gary Webb was Murdered.

So former assassin, Jeremiah, must save the newsman from the same murderous government forces he once was a willing part of, while attempting to open Pilgrim's eyes to how the JFK assassination succeeded.

Set in South Florida (and briefly Dallas), one of the most congenial yet corrupt states of the Union (Florida is home to all those alleged 911 plotters and present day US Intelligence figures), The Guns of Dallas poses one significant question. If a plotter confessed to his part, would any publisher in the mainstream media report it? Pilgrim ultimately discovers the answer to that question-as I did--while risking his life.

Part of my research for this book took me to Dallas, Texas. We Americans have only a few hundred years of history but Dealey Plaza in Dallas remains one of the most completely intact historical sites available. Amazing place. Here is how Jimmy Jeremiah explains to Pilgrim what (likely) happened.

"Damn, nothing has changed and everything," he heard Jimmy say as they crossed Elm. "Almost like time has stopped and I'm back and Kennedy is due here any minute."
"Looks just like the photographs," Pilgrim mumbled.
"No, they took down the giant Hertz clock from the top of the book depository. They removed the fire escape from the Dal-Tex building. And there used to be a locked barricade stopping traffic coming into that parking lot."
The reporter looked puzzled. "You mean cars couldn't just drive in and out?"
"No, you had to have your own key."

The reporter hurried along, amazed and indignant at the apparent slipshod detective work. "Lee Bowers, on duty in that rain tower, saw three cars with out of state license plates circle the parking lot ten or twenty minutes before Kennedy was killed. Who gave them all keys?"
Jeremiah laughed. "I guess they didn't think that question was important."
Jeremiah strode into the parking area, threading his way around cars, striding purposely to the fourteen foot tower and Pilgrim followed. At the wall they truned and counted off the yards to the picket fence.

"Ninety yards!" Jeremiah exclaimed. "Bowers could see both of our shooters clear as day. I'll bet not one (Warren) commissioner came down here and walked off the distances after the assassination...

"Look over the fence; we're hidden pretty well in the trees. Remember, all eyes will soon be on Kennedy and the approaching motorcade. People can hear it coming, they're excited, the roar of the motorcycles, the distant cheers. You raise your rifle carefully, between your torso and the fence. You see the big blue Lincoln turn slowly onto Houston. Then you hear that first pop while the while the car is still out of your sight. Then another shot, from the direction of the book depository and the car appears. Now every eye is absolutely glued to Kennedy, in pain and agony in that car-and it's slowing down! The car is slowing down! Bang! Kennedy's brain spews all over the trunk of the car, blood and brain matter all over the motorcycle escort; people are aghast and falling, and your heart leaps and in a split second the rifle muzzle swings away from the fence, swings up under the front of the car and the spring clamp under the bumper secure it. And you take a deep breath and light a cigarette and the first motorcycle policeman roars up and people are shocked and puzzled and pouring over and around that fence because of course that shot that killed Kennedy sounded like it came from the Grassy Knoll and the picket fence but of course there's only a trim fellow in a nice shirt and raincoat smoking a cigarette and the cop notices he has greasy hands but he produces Secret Service ID to calm the cop and says, No, no one came back here..."

Some months after finishing this book, just out of curiosity, I decided to list the number of reported objects struck by flying bullets that day in Dealey Plaza. My Internet essay, "Count the Bullets: Blow Away All Arguments" destroyed any final, lone gunman theories, IMHO.
Check it out; then buy the book. Thanks.

I think the thing that most intrigued me about this book is how the author is able to incapsule an entire generation under one theme: JFK and the domino type of affect that transpired from his presidency/violent death.
I was in grade school when THE event occured, and well remember the day. Maybe it is indeed the defining single moment of the 1960's.
I ended up in the Army during Viet-Nam. After my return I embraced the counter culture, later moved into responsible adulthood and now enter the nostalgia age. This book is kind of a schematic of what caused certain paths to open to many baby-boomers. Wierd, because I never looked at the 60's/70's events as having a start and a finish--until now.It all just seemed like random chaos before.
The novel is well written, and--I presume--well researched. I bought it on an impulse, and am glad I did. I hope to see more from this writer.

Good, but ULTIMATE SACRIFICE the best book ever
While I thought this book was worthwhile in many respects, ULTIMATE SACRIFICE is simply the best book ever on the JFK assassination.Still, worth your time.

Vince Palamara-JFK/ Secret Service expert (History Channel, author of two books, in over 30 other author's books, etc.)
Pittsburgh, PA

Overall an easy book to read and actually quite enjoyable. However, the material lack focus. At times you think some of the authors must have missed a memo or two, and writing for a different book. This could be the fault of the publisher or editor. Take some of the pictures in Chapter 6 for example, I could barely tell that they were computers, let alone their brand or models. These blurry pictures are next to worthless in the book. The publisher could do better in the QA department.

Speaking of Chapter 6 - "Creating an Attach Lab". I had such high hope for this chapter. Unfortunately, all I got was a history lesson of hardware platforms, and all the different Sun SPARC chips and versions of operating systems. Its nice to have all these hardware to play with, some dating back 10-20 years ago - but it is unrealistic and I am not sure of the real value of it.

Ch.7 - Vulnerability Disclosure is probably the worst ch. of the book. It misses the target audience completely. The discussion of the different types of "model" is compeletly out of place. You can find better resources on the Net.

Links at the end of chapters are quite valuable though, hence the 2 stars.

I liked the book, I like the approach, but it falls short of what needs to be done to be a truly useful tool for job hunting. As I read it the burning question in my mind was, would What Color Is Your Parachute be a better tool? I actually pulled my two year old copy of Parachute off the shelf and it is a better tool.

Still the book deserves a flip through if you have a chance to pull it off your neighbor's shelf or check it out from a library. My favorite chapters were 3 and 4, if there is any chance you might be looking for a job, don't miss those.

InfoSec Career Hacking (ICH) is a confused, directionless book. It's a collection of contributions by various authors, three of which were previously published. The main text never states the goal of the text, so I turned to the description on the back cover: "A technical guide to landing (and keeping) a job in the information security field... If you want to refine those skills to land a top InfoSec job and employer-funded trip to Vegas next year, you've come to the right place." It sounds like ICH wants to be a sort of employment guide for "hackers," but it ends up as a muddle of some useful original material and recycled chapters from older Syngress titles.

On the plus side, there is some good advice in ICH. The first four chapters (Part I) do contain some helpful suggestions for people who have no clue regarding the information security profession. Unfortunately, much of this material is found within poorly presented sections, and next to filler-oriented lists and questionable screen shots. For example, do we need a full listing of the DoD Rainbow Series (pp 7-9), 2004 FISMA grades (p 30), Google search results (p 35, 36, 65), SecurityFocus mailing lists (p 61), USA, Monster, and other job search results (pp 69, 70, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102), and so on? I thought the sample resume on pp 95-6 was poor -- and this is supposed to help people be hired!

With Part II, ICH gets worse. Ch 5 begins with "The Laws of Security," which seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the book. The reason is simple: this is a recycled chapter which appeared in two other Syngress books -- 2002's Hack Proofing Your Network, 2nd Ed (HPYN2E), and 2003's Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box. I though Ch 6, describing home lab components, was one of the better (if not best) chapters in ICH. The author stayed on target and delivered useful guidance on selecting equipment for a home lab. Ch 7 is a disaster like Ch 5. "Vulnerability Disclosure" is a reprint of a chapter from 2004's Cyber Adversary Characterization. And Ch 8? Another reprint, this time from Ch 3 of HPYN2E.

Part III resumes new material, but these chapters aren't worth reading. I got the impression that the authors thought they needed to be "technical," so they threw in short discussions of network architecture, incident response, intrusion detection, and other topics. I didn't waste time on these chapters, and neither should you.

Syngress publishes many great security books, and I've reviewed several recently; see Phishing Exposed or Software Piracy Exposed. If Syngress wants ICH to return in a second edition, they should bring in an editor who cuts out the three recycled chapters, the worthless screen shots, and other fluff, and directs the authors to deliver useful material.

Plenty of people are curious as to how to become an information security professional. It's a profession that has a bit of an establishment atmosphere to it where entry to various levels is granted in secret. And it's often hard to understand where to start. Infosec Career Hacking attempts to demystify this process and show you not only generic strategies for employment, but ones specific to the information security field.

The book focuses on career development, not on how to be a hacker or a professional hacker. It's full of some useful information about building a successful career, much of which applies to any technical field. It also focuses mostly on being in the infosec service business, not in product development or, to a large degree, operations. Keep that in mind when you think about buying it. While most of what you'll learn is generic technical career advice, some of it is focused.

The first part of the book is especially useful, and I think provides most of the value that's not available elsewhere. Things that are covered may seem like basics that people should have just picked up, but it's hard to know what you're supposed to know when you change environments, let alone see it all together in one place. I find this section to be especially useful and reasonably well written.

Chapter 1 opens up with a basic orientation of the infosec landscape, including the types of companies and organizations you may want to look at working with, the types of work and positions you see typically, and what kinds of skills you'll need to consider get the interview, let alone the job. Chapter 2 is much like a hacking book in that you're encouraged to perform some scout work on your potential places of employment. Good advice, and it's nice to see it demonstrated. Chapter 3 talks about getting experience and getting your feet wet in the infosec world. Things like conferences, local groups and meetings, and even security clearances are covered. A nice overview, but a it shallow in places, too. Chapter 4 focuses on the resume and the interview, the kinds of things that normally jump to mind when you think about career hacking. A decent overview, and good things to learn.

Part 2 focuses on technical parts. These chapters, I felt, were a bit thin on value and attempted to provide too much coverage but without the depth. What I felt this part of the book was trying to do was to be a quick overview of what you should know if you want a career in information security without any of the work it takes. Because this is such a broad amount of material, and the book only spends about 180 pages on it, the coverage isn't deep. Instead, the cursory coverage is a detriment to the book's value.

Chapter 5 is where I found the most material to complain about. This chapter is titled, 'The Laws of Security', and can be used for your benefit or your downfall. In the right hands, where the nuances that come from actually encountering these challenges in the wild and discovering the reasoning behind them, you can display wisdom. In the wrong hands, where you can't successfully defend a challenge to these axioms, at best you'll appear to be someone who parrots security luminaries, and at worst you'll look like an uninformed buffoon. If you decide to accept conclusions without understanding the reasoning behind them, you're asking for it.

Chapter 6 talks about building a home lab of machines for attack. I felt this chapter devoted too much time to drooling over gear and not enough time discussing more equipment and more valuable gear. Large classes of lab resources, including enterprise applications, networking gear, and even commercial security software was left out. The disclosure debate was reasonably well handled in chapter 7, discussing the various ways that people have established this process. What's missing here is how to actually find where to send the report to and how to ensure it's been acted upon. And finally, a nice, succinct and reasonably comprehensive (if a little too short at times) classification of vulnerabilities and attacks fills chapter 8.

Part 3, 'On the Job', is for when you finally have the position and now you want to keep your job, advance your career, and improve your skills. Unfortunately, this section feels a bit undeveloped in too many places. There's a lot to cover, but the chapters here lack any significant depth to them, and it doesn't feel like they really deliver as strongly as they could.

This section opens with an approach to your career much like an intruder would take to advancing their compromise. Chapter 9 covers how to perform scouting of your new environment, how to get through meetings without messing up, landing your own projects and succeeding with basic project management. Thinking about striking out on your own? That's natural, and the next few chapters will help with that. Chapter 10 is a short list of ideas on how you can use your new knowledge and skills to benefit others, which can help you build a name for yourself and maybe even clients. Chapter 11 looks like it's trying to encourage you to become a local leader of information security knowledge, using that information specifically for incident response. In a crisis, everyone loves a hero, so why can't that be you? And finally, the book closes with a chapter on how to start looking at being an independent consultant. It's been said that you'll never succeed working for someone else, so why not work for yourself? This chapter introduces you to some of the possibilities here, along with some of the considerations. Overall, these chapters have some clear value to them, but because they try and cover so much, they feel underdeveloped and fail to really deliver a strong benefit to the reader.

One of my big concerns when I began reading this book was that it would encourage you to simply become another script kiddy type consultant, capable of downloading a few tools and use old hat techniques to deliver sub-par results. That's a crowded marketplace already, so I didn't want to see anyone encourage that. Instead, it tries to impart valuable career skills. My big complaint is that it tries to do so much that it can't possibly succeed in all of them. It does a decent job, but in some places it definitely lacks the solid landing to make it stick. Overall, though, this uncommon book is a nice twist on the old career guides, tuned for the information security market.

Even though the content in this book sways from one end of the information security spectrum to the other reaching the point of identity crisis, I really like its approach. I speak on this topic quite often and I'm finding it's the one area of information security that has remained mostly untouched - yet desperately needed - in this hot field. There are several success-related topics missing, but overall this book is a good read for those looking to take their information security careers to the next level.

This book was interesting and fascinating. Capstick sure can write and interesting book whether about hunting or about a biography. Love Capsticks work!

This is an excellent read if you love the outdoors and Capstick's writing...

If a ever a man turned the gender concept on it's ear, it was John Howard "Pondoro" Taylor. He shot the biggest game, carried the best big-bore rifles and fought the toughest men.
I would ask readers to overlook Taylor's sexual orientation and concentrate on his prowess as a writer, hunter, and rifleman.This book is best read after reading Taylor's autobiography.

I absolutely loved this book. Pondoro may have had faults but this is a great tale! The chapter on Fletcher Jamieson is brilliant!!

AFTER YOU START READING THIS BOOK YOU BEGIN TO SEE THE DEEP DEVOTION THIS MAN HAS FOR AFRICA, THIS STORY IS VERY INTERESTING, SOMETIMES FUNNY AND IN THE END KINDA SAD. JOHN TAYLOR HAD A GREAT KNOWLEDGE OF GUNS AND CALIBURS AND WAS WHAT WE WOULD CONSIDER IN TODAYS TIMES AN UNETHICAL HUNTER. THIS STORY IS FROM A DIFFIRENT TIME AND A DIFFIRENT AFRICA, A GOOD ADDITION TO YOUR CAPSTICK COLLECTION.

I almost cancelled this order, but ended up with the book.... it is a good read and makes for a pleasant afternoon - it feeds curiosity and is well written.

I was into the old series "Get Smart" and all the old spy movie stuff... this, however, reveals real weapons that have been developed.

Very interesting!

this is a so so product lacking depth and content, you can read it though

good information bases book. Very useful in keeping up with what can be done if you put your mind to it. The crimial element is really on the ball in this book. Highly recomment tihs one.

I thought this book was going to be about how to improvise every day objects and use them as weapons, but it is a book about bans on guns and how people have made guns themselves when the government will not. This book is a very good overview of why people have created their own weapons, and it helps me to appreciate the First Ammendment more and more.
If you are looking for a book on weapon-making, I would recommend the Improvised Munitons Blackbook.

This book is basically an illustrated argument against the concept of gun-banning legislature being effective in keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals. There are many photos and examples of improvised single shot weapons using the .22 catridge that hardly look like conventional weapons. What they lack in stopping power and accuracy, they make up for with relative ease of construction, accessability of materials, and concealment. Many of these examples were confiscated from inmates in prisons. Which raises the question: if criminals can make guns in federal prisons, then how can gun laws prevent them from doing so when they are free in the streets?
Later in the book, there are examples of more sophisticated weapons, like reproduced AK-47's and the like by local craftsmen in third world areas.
It's interesting (and to some, perhaps unnerving) to see a shotgun made by a 15 year old from simple pipes that is capable of firing a 12 gauge round.
What could have made it better is if it featured cutaway illisrations showing the inside of some of these devices, like where the round is places, where the firing pin is located, and the mechanism that activates it.
Overall, if you are interested in improvised weapons and/or odd devices, then its worth the money. Just be advised that it is not a how-to manual.

It's a nice book on tanks and how to destroy them. Surprisingly recent information, for an old looking book. Not a glossy photo book, but good facts and good language.

This as a facinating read. It dispells myths and misconceptions
perpetrated by Hollywood and most histories. It gives the reader
insight into the development and tactical employment of a weapon that has and continues to change the modern world.

As a reader well versed in military history, the chapters relating to the competitive development of the Maxim
and Gatling were truly news to me, as was the impact of the Maxim on European colonialism. The DeBeer's diamond monopoly owes its existence to the Maxim gun...as a jingle went at the time.." whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim gun and they have not."

The author's treatment of the evolution of tactical employment of the weapon is also very interesting and informative. Most modern non-military readers would not know what a machine gun barrage is, knowing only of it's use in direct fire mode. The machine gun barrage is firing the weapon at a high angle such that the resulting stream of projectiles plunge at a high angle in a parabolic curve, resulting a area known as "beaten ground". This is an area saturated by bullets that in practice is a lozenge shaped area. No aiming at individual targets is required. This technique was used as recently as the Falklands war where a section of medium machine guns expended hundreds of thousands of rounds in support of a single assault.

This is a must read for anyone interested 20th century military history.

The Grim Reaper is an excellent machine gun book, and like some other people, I read it cover-to-cover in about four days. There are 22 pictures in all, and yes, there could have been more. Other than that, the text is easy to understand and it is very informative. The book starts with the beginning of the machine gun and ends with modern machine guns. The book described several military engagements with detail. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in machine guns or firearms in general.

This book is not (yet another) thick reference guide to machine-guns. Instead it is a remarkably comprehensive yet concise introduction to the history of machine gun development, production and usage from the earliest manual guns of the American Civil War to the sophistication of equipment in service of modern armies. Ford's favourite "pet" period is the 1900s-1950s era - a classic period in the refinement and perfection of recoil-operated machine guns (the "fifty-cal" Browning M2 circa 1928 is still in use throughout the world).

From my humble perspective, the author is particularly successful in his bid to follow four separate aspects of machine-gun's history:

- technological advances
- production and logistics
- tactical usage and strategic impact
- "human factor"

Most other books on the subject tend to select only one of those and discuss it at length. Ford's aim is much broader. He successfully manages to carry out those separate threads of argument at once. All four are seamlessly threaded into a single narration. It is a pleasure to see as complicated yet orderly mosaic of dependencies emerges. Suddenly lots of old historical facts start to make much more sense and cease being "strange things old generations did". You could see how human ingenuity, incompetence, politics and greed on one side and weather and mud on the other shaped machine-guns as we know them today.

Throughout the narration, the author keeps precise balance between excellent readability and technical meticulousness. He never drools in extreme dry technicalities. On the other hand, quoted contemporary accounts are concise and well chosen to emphasize important technical or tactical arguments, not just fill the pages with military glamour or gore of warfare. Descriptions of selected important models are skilfully incorporated into narration. The performance details given are carefully constrained to important bits, so text does not deteriorate into a comprehensive yet boring enumeration of numbers and hardware components, the flaw many of Christopher Chant's books (for example) suffer from.

By its very nature, such book cannot be encyclopaedic and include everything. Nevertheless, by putting particular machine-guns into historical context, it inspires reader to get back to related works and browse through them with a new interest. I quite recommend reading this book alongside some nice and heavy reference encyclopaedia of small arms. You will get lots of unexpected fun.

Perhaps I should explain why I haven't given this book full 5 stars:

This book only major drawback is utter and complete absence of drawings and/or action diagrams. Ford does a remarkable job of explaining the mechanism of action of particular guns and interesting technical arrangements using text only. However remarkable his control of language might be - such descriptions are sometimes hard to follow. For the person new to the subject this could be annoying and somewhat diminish the pleasure of an otherwise excellent book.

Same applies to photographs which are few, poorly chosen and often placed out of context.

Saying that - the text alone is brilliant. The book is worth buying just for the sheer reading pleasure sake.

The development of the machinegun and its effects on world politics, colonialization and warfare are incredibly well reviewed by Ford. This is not a field manual about how to service these weapons, but rather a look at how this (relatively) simple machine has changed warfare and politics and the world. I learned a tremendous amount about how this machine is used in combat and how those uses changed from WWI to Desert Storm. The technical review is adequate and the discussion of applications and deployment is phenomenal. The accounts of soldiers further illustrate the importance of this weapon to the modern battlefield. I read this book cover to cover in less than 5 days and plan to reread it soon. It is truly a must have for any serious military science or 20th century history library. Five stars don't rate high enough for this thoughtful review of Maxim's machine and its many children.

An excellent book for firearms enthusiasts and collectors. Very good tips on numerous 100-150 year old specimens that can be applied to many other types and models that are not specifically covered.

Also has very useful information on gunsmithing and use of tools. The part on screw driver tips MUST be carefully read and diligently applied as many gun screws (and thus guns) are harmed and/or ruined due to use of wrong screwdrivers and techniques. A few extra bucks spent on quality screwdrivers and time used to fit them to screwslots will save many bucks, tempers and tears (including tearing off hair) otherwise encountered.

Very well presented with a wealth of information for the pro or home gunsmith.Another good reference book to add to the collection.

I returned this book because I felt it did not live up to my expectations after all the hype I had read about it.

I found this book to be very helpful when repairing top break replicas, Colts (single and double action), and percussion revolvers. He also covers lever action rifles extensively although I have not personally used that section.

Gunsmiths these days are hard to find, so a lot of us have to do it ourselves. The author thankfully covers a lot of important and common problems I have faced, so that I didn't have to go on a usually futile search for a gunsmith. Mr. Chicoine is obviously an experienced and intelligent man, and he writes clearly. Plenty of illustrations guide you through the repairs he describes.

Does he cover every possible conceivable problem? Every firearm? Of course not. Who could? For the money I recommend it. It has saved me more than the purchase price already.

Dave Chicoine's book places the years of this Mastercraftsmens experience and knowledge right in your hands.Long known amongst the collector's & shooters of the old firearms as THEE person to have do your repair or restoration's on these old classics, Chicoines book makes a most welcome addition to this booming field and is written in a down to earth,understandable manner,
clear and concise, and reader friendly.The information found in this new book contains a tremendous amount of hard to find facts and details surrounding working on these "old timers" and new information about the modern reproductions of many of these classics and the "ins & Outs" of them also by the man who has the most experience to date in working,repairing and "sprucing up" these new firearms. Let us hope he produces more such works for those of us in this field down the road a piece.

I fell in love with this story from a clip on Gun Brooke's web page. I could not wait for the book to come out. Sheridan's fate is a great book. The story comes alive from the pages of gun's book.

I always look forward to this author's books.

Interesting tale of a 38 year old San Antonio, Texas tycoon (Sheridan) paralyzed in the opening chapter and the physical therapist (Lark) who may be the cure for her body and soul. A rollercoaster ride that takes you through the family backgrounds and uses the internet for many of the twists and turns. This is a fun and romantic page turner that will have interest for many readers. At over 250 pages a very satisfying read.

Don't miss the author's other books:
Course of Action - It's a KEEPER!
Coffee Sonata
Protector of the Realm
Rebels Quest

After reading all of Gun Brooke's previous books and enjoying them immensely, Sheridan's Fate did not disappoint.
It was a fast paced book dealing with the internal struggles of Professional Conduct and Personal Recovery.
The key message was communication. When the burning desire and attraction is not matched by open communications and is complicated by internalised values, there is always going to be problems. I particularly enjoyed the loyalty of the support characters.
This book is a real page-turner and is another success story for the author.
None of the books published by BSB have ever disappointed.

This was one of the worst books I've read in a while. Or actually, I skipped a large part towards the end because I couldn't bear it. There's not one cliche this book doesn't cover, starting with the characterization of the main characters (so yes, it's über, but there is über out there that is more inventive with the basic characterizations that are a given), and the dreadful part of the storyline that includes deception via online chatting.

It was the first book I read by Gun Brooke and I'm not inclined to read another.

On one hand this book was often full of some weak or clumsy characterization, but on the other also contained a lot of clear moments of honest emotion, expressed and captured with clarity. Despite my impression of weak characterization overall, there were plenty of interesting and inspiring character moments to make the book worth reading. It was usually at its strongest when the two main characters were interacting, well-written, with authentic details about the care Sheridan requires, and the explanations and encouragement Lark would give her (in the best of the "hurt-comfort" traditions).

But from the very beginning of the book I was naggingly annoyed at inconsistency in character motivations, for instance: why Lark accepted the job. She seemed to be convincingly in a state of inactivity and boredom, which explained her acceptance despite previous assertions that she would not engage in this type of work again, but then she was suddenly trying to tell people she was doing it because she knew someone needed her? It seemed like an abrupt switch in thinking, and in fact the characters "suddenly" or "immediately" or "instinctively" realized a lot of things in the beginning, which is a pet peeve of mine for being lazy writing, and makes initial impressions of the characters choppy and necessarily full of assumptions as they could jump any way at any time.

In addition, too many random things were introduced rather jarringly, like they will clearly mean something later, but the introduction is so random that it makes whatever object/situation stand out rather than being a part of the flow of the story (e.g. the self-help book, chat room, a sister in some sort of distress). It's like these are things the characters would have on their minds a lot, but they are never expressed as thinking about them, or they don't actually effect them until some moment when it suddenly consumes all of their attention (chat room, sister's handicap, business worries). But then again, despite the apparent big deal made about them, some things were never referred too again leaving the whole thing rather unfinished (e.g. self-help book).

Other bits bugged me: it seems to be too surprising to the characters that they find one another attractive (and they express that surprise over and over again), particularly when Lark admits early on that Sheridan is a "type" of hers (though she contradicts herself later); Lark gave up too quickly the first time Sheridan tried to excise her from her life (this is a professional?); the most innocuous of statements was the final catalyst to the discovery of the secret chat identities.

Too many characters acted too often in a manner that I had a hard time swallowing that real-life people would act that way. This was too obviously a fiction with literary devices thrown in for story-telling, versus doing the actual work.

But to the author's credit the real emotion was not shied away from in the end, which is something I admire. I'm also glad that the resolution came swiftly, rather than being drawn out. And the ending worked, and likely saved the book for me, and elevated it in my mind from a 2-1/2 star effort to 3 stars.

Not one I'll read over and over. And not having read many of this author's works I'm not sure I'd read any others. But I'll think about it. Perhaps a library book to see if this author's quirks that bugged me persist. If you think I'm being too nit-picky, you'll probably really enjoy this book, but it could have been better.

This 1966 novel is unusual ,but not unique ,in L'Amour's work in having a then contemporary setting .Its hero is Jim Sheridan a Western novelist ,a veteran of both Korea and Vietnam,who discovers then eponymous gun and more importantly a portion of a diary concealed inside it.The diary dates fromthe 1870's and is partial account of a trail drive from Texas to Arizona .At the end of the drive the cattle owners,John and Clyde Toomey, had simply vanished along with 27 men and 4000 head of cattle.Sheridan has always been fascinated by the Toomey case and sets out for Arizona to do further research in the hope of turning it into a novel.He makes no secret of his intention to do so.
A man named Manuel Alvarez sends Jim a note saying he has information that might help but is murdered before he can pass this on.Not only that but one of his brothers has died in mysterious circumstances and Pio his other brother,a skilled guerilla fighter ,has gone into hiding .
Also involved is a powerful local rancher Colin Wells who is keen to get his hands on the diary to prevent the exposure of a family scandal and who does not scruple to try to kill Jim when he cannot buy him off.Jim and Pio join forces against Wlls and his henchmen.

The book is in essence a traditional Western with a land dispute plot that has served in several genre titles but L'Amour has tried to give it a contemporary twist which does not quite cut it for my taste .The women -Wells' calculating wife Doris and his neighbour whose land he covets,Belle,are particularly sketchilly done .

Its a tad Rambo-ish in places when Jim and Pio display their militarily honed fighting skills

The book is a solid read but the auithor was at his best when at his most ;raditional in Western settings and eras This is not his best but a reasonable quick read for action lovers all the same

This isn't L'Amours worst novel but it doesn't miss by much, that honor belongs to Utah Blaine, this story is the same thing over and over, the good guy gets caught by the bad guys but then he gets away time after time, save your time read something else.

According to Louis L'Amour's book 'The Broken Gun' a massacre of 27 innocent men with their cattle herd stolen happened 90 years ago. The time setting of this book is 90 later as page 51 states: "This is not the nineteenth century, the day of the rustler and gun-fighter; this was the day of satellites and moon voyages."

This book has Louis straddling both the 19th and 20th centuries, with the hero, Dan Sheridan, living out his life a few years after the Korean conflict. Part of the experience and knowledge from that armed conflict will help him and another man with whom he served in Korea face the people now trying to kill both of them. Since Louis taught survival courses during his years in the Army, much of that survival training is embedded in this story taking place in the Verde River Valley, Yavapai County, Arizona. This is an area laying just east of Phoenix, Arizona.

The narrative continually swings back and forth from the present to the year 1872 when two men, Clyde and John Toomey, met their murderous ends. Decendents of the people who bushwhacked the Toomeys now without deed live on the land they stole from the Toomeys. In the process of writing his book, author Dan Sheridan seeks not only to save several lives in this outdoor adventure, but also seeks justice for the 27 men killed 90 years previous, by seeing the rightful heirs get their property back.

Within this story a Bisley colt has part of a diary in the barrel of the gun, and this helps get Dan Sheridan's interest, plus it gives him information about the Toomeys. This is interesting to me too, for in a 1937 William Colt MacDonald story published in Western Story Magazine (3/6/37), entitled "Skelton Gold", a Texas wrangler buys an old .45 in Paso City with a map to hidden treasure in the barrel. Is this only a coincidence? Was Louis familiar with this short story?

If you are a western fan in general, or a Louis L'Amour fan in specific you will find much in this book to enjoy.

Sempter Fi.

this is the first L.L. book i had read now ive read about 3/4 of them and im only 11 he is a great author

THE BROKEN GUN combines the best of the Old West and the New as Dan Sheridan, a western historian and author, seeks to solve a ninety-year-old western mystery. Finding several pages of an old journal, rolled up and stuffed in the barrel of a broken gun, a Bisley Colt, Sheridan seeks to uncover the secrets spoken of in the journal. As he proceeds he finds that the account deals with events that, while seemingly forgotten and settled history, have spilled over into the present with frightening consequences.

Louis L'Amour's THE BROKEN GUN is a sensational read that reminds us that, in the West, some things change while others remain alarmingly the same.

THE HORSEMAN

I am an admirer of fine firearms and I own three double barrel shotguns; one of which is a Browning Superposed, SN 69172. I bought it used back in 1970 for $288. Wow! Say goodbye to the good old days. When I saw this book, I had to have it. The author went into great depth and detail regarding what has to be one of the finest double barreled shotguns ever made. Nothing is left to chance, from its first years as a production item through to the present, when it ended up becoming a custom made item. Chronological dates are provided concerning production and when they were made. Mine was made in 1959. I was especially impressed with the chapter on the engraving department for the FN Works. The number of engravers employed by the factory was extensive and it is no small wonder the higher grade Brownings are some of the most beautifully engraved guns I have ever seen. This is borne out by the very extensive use of color photographs of the engraving and custom guns found throughout the book. If you are an admirer of fine guns like I am, then you would enjoy sitting down in your favorite chair one evening and reading this book. This is a book to be read again and again and enjoyed. Buy it. It will be money well spent.

This book held great promise for me. But as I read through it, I began to realize how few real facts about the Superposed it actually contained. Oh, there are plenty of sales charts and market projections... photos of beautiful guns, too. But these can only suffice to a point. The collector and aficionado wants to know more than the story of engraving and sales histories. The inside story of the gun is crtical. The steels. The design. The mechanism's function and evolution. And with so much access to the FN records and personnel, actual on-site contact in Liege, and an apparent interview with the late Val Browning, author Schwing managed to reveal very little beyond the empirical. Many of the facts that are contained in the book are also repeated. Some more than twice. It's still a great photo feast, however. And it inspired me to go out and buy two Superposed shotguns. So the book does have a certain value.

As an owner of a Browning Superposed, I was interested in the history of its' design. This book is, in many ways, an excellent overview of this popular over/under which combines American design with Belgian Fabrique Nationale Herstel craftsmanship. I did, however, find the details of Browning's business history excessive, boring and unnecessary; charts, sales figures, etc.. A few pages on this subject would have been more than adequate; I wanted to know about the gun. The color photos are excellent, although, of course, I would have liked more. Paper quality is also excellent. In short, everything is here for the Browning or double enthusiast. Just filter through the boring stuff. If you're interested in the Superposed there's really no alternative to this book. Plus it's reasonably priced for what you get. Hope this review helps anyone considering the purchase of this book.

I enjoyed this book for it's illustrations and written content. I dissagree with the some of the other reviewers comments. The "Salt-Wood" problem was discussed, several paragraphs worth covering it's origin. There is also discussion of the design changes made during the course of production and well as a sidebar on the Simmons/Cordy & Sons barrel conversions. The text does focus alot on the financial dealings of the Browning family and the FN factory, but the Superposed was a commercial venture so the health of the company producing it is relevant. I also enjoyed the lengthy discussion of the engravers with samples of their workmanship. It was ammusing to compare the photos to my '69 Grade I Broadway. The book could have used more engineering drawings of the design. However, I didn't expect this book to be focused on the repair of Superposed shotguns.

The book is a good tabletop piece, with some well researched facts about the Superposed history and some excellent color illustrations. If you are buying the book to guide you in the purchase of a Superposed beware! There is no discussion of the salt wood problem that existed from 1966 to 1973. Unless you are excited about statistical data covering models, grades, etc. you will not be pleased with the large percentage of the book dedicated to charts and graphs. You can learn more about the Superposed from other books and articles than is available here. Caveat Emptor!