Washington Books

A facinating insider's view of the growth and role of U.S. airpower that resulted from U.S. military involvement in the 1991 Gulf War.

As a United States Air Force fighter pilot, Lieutenant Colonel P.K. "Sting" White takes readers behind the scenes in this "on-target" analysis of the changing military-political role of the Air Force. The author successfully argues that the role of the Air Force has transcended that of the mere delivery of steel on target to a role that now also encompasses the enforcement of political policy through the use of "no-fly" zones.

White's firsthand knowledge of air operations in the Gulf has skillfully allowed him to press his argument home. This book is a great testament to USAF ability to change with the times.

A must read for military scholars, Air Force leaders and political scientists.

A facinating insider's view of the growth and role of U.S. airpower that resulted from U.S. military involvement in the 1991 Gulf War.

As a United States Air Force fighter pilot, Lieutenant Colonel P.K. "Sting" White takes readers behind the scenes in this "on-target" analysis of the changing military-political role of the Air Force. The author successfully argues that the role of the Air Force has transcended that of the mere delivery of steel on target to a role that now also encompasses the enforcement of political policy through the use of "no-fly" zones.

White's firsthand knowledge of air operations in the Gulf has skillfully allowed him to press his argument home. This book is a great testament to USAF ability to change with the times.

A must read for military scholars, Air Force leaders and political scientists.

This beautifully illustrated book is a great history teacher. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Louise Peacock's first book is a tribute to her excellent work as a historian. Although written for children 9-12, it is a book that that will appeal to all ages. She has a rare talent for writing a simple story that evokes the reader to find depth and insight. Her unique approach of blending three story lines allows the reader to experience the Battle of Trenton from a wide range of perspectives. Truly a work of art, this book comes highly recommended.

It is an excellent read. The authors took the Lincoln assassination and by moving the facts a few degrees gave it a whole new perspective. The authors obviously did mountains of research to make the story and characters as historically correct as possible. Character development is great and I had trouble putting the book down.

Almost since the moment Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, writers and historians have argued about the possibility of Confederate involvement in the president's killing. A large part of the issue has centered on whether the South stood to gain anything by Lincoln's death - at least in the minds of those high up in the Jefferson Davis administration. Though we may never reach a consensus, there is much to recommend the argument that the South was better off with Abraham Lincoln alive than dead. This is the underlying assumption of this new and exciting novel by J. Mark Powell and L. D. Meagher.

In The Curse of Cain, Powell and Meagher put a new twist on the Lincoln conspiracy. In their version of the story, the assassination is indeed the result of Southern malfeasance. But the chief instigator, a Confederate congressman, is actually a loose cannon, and when his own government learns that he has hired an assassin to eliminate Lincoln, they send an agent to find the killer before he brings the "Curse of Cain" down upon them all.

Powell and Meagher have built their story around a plausible idea, and have constructed a well-paced narrative with just the right mix of action and intrigue. Their heroes include the Confederate agent, Kate St. Claire, who spends her time cultivating contacts in the upper strata of Washington society; and Jack Tanner, a no-nonsense detective in the Confederate provost guard. Their villains are Basil Tarleton, a cold-blooded killer; and John Wilkes Booth, his reluctant cohort who wants only to capture the president. These people move about in a deadly game of cat and mouse, each team set against the other, but both with the ultimate goal of saving the Confederacy.

The Curse of Cain is a fast-paced adventure with heart-stopping action and surprises at every turn. It is a great read, and would make an excellent addition to any collection of Civil War literature.

I picked up this book yesterday at the mountaineers bookstore after patiently waiting for it for weeks and I'm happy to say the wait was most definitely worth the wait.

This title is a great revision of the classic '100 hikes' series perfectly geared for the modern hiker. The text is much more concise and direct with much clearer maps and directions. Gone are the Harvey Manning style trail reviews that often turned into personal meditations where meaning and fact had to be gleaned with much care. As is evident by the title, the focus is also entirely on Day Hiking, with a scant minority of the hikes exceeding 10 miles round trip. This is in sharp contrast to the classic hikes series in which most volumes were heavily slanted toward multi-day backpacking treks. This probably bodes well for the old series staying in print as it will still have a definitive niche. There is also a much greater emphasis given to year round hikes with many low elevation destinations included in the whopping 125 hikes listed in the book.

My one complaint would be that the snazzy 'hike overview chart' at the beginning of the book misses out on a few helpful details that would make finding a desirable hike quickly easier, specifically these details would be elevation gain, specific months accessible and the subjective star rating of the hike's overall quality that. All these details are of course available for each hike in the meat of the book. What is included in the overview chart are things such as whether or not the hike is accessible year round, what scenic features each possesses, and subjective difficulty level on a 1-6 scale. Amusingly only one hike rates a 6 for difficulty which translates to "beyond strenuous".

Overall a great launch to a new series. I'm highly looking forward to the Snoqualmie & South Cascades editions (both written by a different author) and hopefully many more to come after that!

I have been patiently waiting for this book to release ever since Father's Day of 2006. I met author Craig Romano on the trail and he featured individual pictures of me and my dad in two areas of this guide. At first, I wanted to pick up the book for its sentimental value but as I began to look through the pages I realized that there were a plothora of trails to chose from. I came across trails I have never seen written up in any guide book including the Theler Wetlands in Belfair, Twanoh State Park near Union and Penrose Point State Park. The driving directions and trail descriptions are highly accurate and there is a quick breakdown of each hike outlining the difficulty, open seasons, corresponding maps and accessibility. Each hike has been meticulously researched and it is evident that a great amount of time and effort went in to making this book as accurate and descriptive as possible. Out of all of the Olympic Peninsula trail guides I have read, this is quite possibly the best out there.

A Death in Washington is a genuine page turner: Gary Kern manages to not only give the relevent facts of Krivitsky`s perilous and dangerous journey from believer in the great experiment to defector (where he gave early warning to the west of Stalin`s agenda), but best of all, it is written with great stylistic aplomb. This is a rare book which in its critical detail can satisfy the professional but is also completely accessible to the general reader; you will recognize many of the players, and the connections between them are clearly sustained. It is the general reader who will be most astonished by the sheer criminality of Stalin and the terrible code of the spy`s world. One of the great pleasures in this book is the psychological and methodological analysis inherent in the character of Krivitsky which enabled his survival until the very end. I think the book a very important addition to the literature which is becoming more available on the Stalin period, and I think that a thoughtful consideration of Kern`s invaluable and dramatic presentation will help us better understand the Russia which is emerging today on the world stage. I highly recommend the book. I had read it as slowly as I could so as to prolong the pleasure and thrill it gave to me.

Kern has done a remarkable job with this very difficult subject. I have read many books about Soviet spies, but this is by far the best one, in terms of the depth of understanding of the political system in the Soviet Union at the time. The portrait of American leftists and bureaucrats is priceless. This author has brought rigorous logic and impeccable scholarship to this field. All this, and it reads like a mystery.

This a fine book. You won't be sorry you bought it -- or sent it to a friend, as I did.

I really enjoyed this Fiona mystery. Adler's fearless Irish girl detective may not be PC -- let's face it, she's a borderline alcoholic who lets her job get in her way of her love life -- but she's pretty real. The whodunit is a good one, with a lot of action that tosses the suspicions back and forth. Another good thing: this book has a cast of other strong female characters. You can pretty well guess who the "violet-eyed moviestar wife of Virginia politician" is modeled after; this is the author's signature light touch of humor that leavens a pretty horrible murder that has racist repercussions later on.

There was no one like Adam Hammer before he lived and there's been no one like him since he died. This book should be buttressed by the rest of his admittedly thin but indispensable oeuvre--go ahead and google them . . . I was privileged to know him "como un hermano" from 1972 to 1974. He kept going for ten years afterward, and Karenlee Clarke Alexander and I believed ourselves immensely honored to be called his "elderliest friends." Lately, I was delighted to find a Virginia Quarterly Review capsule review of an anthology called "Dark Horses" quoting a few lines from one of his poems (selected by Jim Daniels). Oddly, but certainly on target, a few verses from an overlooked poem by Emily Dickinson immediately follows those Hammeresque lines. Once walking by the Dickinson house, we imagined what somone might do should the silhouette of her wraith appear in the upstairs window . . . Knock on the door? Write something else entitled "Call'd back"? . . . Adam always remembered to acknowledge those poets--Bill Knott, Jim Tate, Tom Lux, Joe Newman, John Love--who first inspired him to ride the winged horse. His own work as well as his (undoubtedly more difficult to find) opinions should be better known.

THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE!!!!!11 IT WAS SO TOTALLY TRIPPY MAN, THAT I DIDN'T READ NETHING ELSE FOR LIKE A WEEK! I LOVE YOU, ADAM HAMMER!!

What a delightful book! The characters are real and you can almost feel the air. It made me laugh and cry and wish for more. The story moves from Chicago to Out West. The Civil War is just coming to an end and the book moves swiftly into the Westward Movement. This author writes about gamblers, dance hall girls, preachers, bankers, cowboys and everything else you'd want to see, but with plot twists you won't expect. A good love story to boot. All told with humor and warmth. I just wish I could sit down with the characters over a cup of coffee. And I know just the place in River Bend! Read and enjoy!

Great book! The characters are wonderful, the setting is spectacular and the story just makes you feel good all over. Can't wait for her next book!

Great book, it takes the reader to a time and place in history where one feels part of the experience. Very well reasearched and depicted. I particularly enjoyed the highly-moving Japanese internment camp stories described in the book.

A lovingly crafted book, with a comprehensive grasp of the issues surrounding the internment of the Japanese from the Seattle area.

Over the past seven years we have watch the most corruptadministration in American history and yet the approvals ratings are threw the roof. As a society have we just taken this for granted or are we fed up with the politics of Washington?

Robert Shogan's book, Double Edged Sword, enlightens this reviewer with a new and insightful reading about how this is not the first case of living and talking the double standard. Shogan has presented a clear case that politics and civilians are sometimes intertwined.

I enjoyed this book, and although there are some things I may disagree with, overall the author has a convincing set of arguments. Shogan has facts and data to back up what he talks about. Shogan makes reading enjoyable and fun with this book.

Whether Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal and everyone in between, The Double Edged Sword, should be on the must read list. A perfect book for the times and an impressive look into what makes the Presidency the most difficult job in the world today.

Over the past seven years we have watch the most corrupt administration in American history and yet the approvals ratings are threw the roof. As a society have we just taken this for granted or are we fed up with the politics of Washington?

Robert Shogan's book, Double Edged Sword, enlightens this reviewer with a new and insightful reading about how this is not the first case of living and talking the double standard. Shogan has presented a clear case that politics and civilians are sometimes intertwined.

I enjoyed this book, and although there are some things I may disagree with, overall the author has a convincing set of arguments. Shogan has facts and data to back up what he talks about. Shogan makes reading enjoyable and fun with this book.

Whether Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal and everyone in between, The Double Edged Sword, should be on the must read list. A perfect book for the times and an impressive look into what makes the Presidency the most difficult job in the world today.