A Private War

Rating:
Summary: excellent military police investigation
Review: The lieutenant colonel is career military with the common officer goal of wanting to join the elite general officer club. Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Cleon, the new provost marshal of Fort Hazleton, Indiana, doesn't think her new back water post will do anything to advance her career but she couldn't say no to the Star who requested she take the assignment.

From the moment she gets on the base, she knows she's not going to like her stay at Fort Hazelton. Her immediate superior is a man she had trouble with in the past and her aide has a problem with a woman as a boss. The day gets worse when a general's aide is found tied to a target on the range, her body riddled with bullet holes. Then the PM discovers a cache of weapons headed for Fort Knox was stolen. To add to Meredith's woe's an Afro-American and a Jew are the victims of hate crimes. Meredith wants to see if there is a common denominator to these three crimes preferably before her career goes down the tubes.

A PRIVATE WAR takes no prisoners. Everyone is either a suspect or a target and the protagonist must make sure she knows friends from foes. Patrick Sheane Duncan creates a fascinating story line, which enables readers to see what happens during a military police investigation. This is an excellent story created by an expert writer.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: excellent military police investigation
Review: The lieutenant colonel is career military with the common officer goal of wanting to join the elite general officer club. Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Cleon, the new provost marshal of Fort Hazleton, Indiana, doesn't think her new back water post will do anything to advance her career but she couldn't say no to the Star who requested she take the assignment.

From the moment she gets on the base, she knows she's not going to like her stay at Fort Hazelton. Her immediate superior is a man she had trouble with in the past and her aide has a problem with a woman as a boss. The day gets worse when a general's aide is found tied to a target on the range, her body riddled with bullet holes. Then the PM discovers a cache of weapons headed for Fort Knox was stolen. To add to Meredith's woe's an Afro-American and a Jew are the victims of hate crimes. Meredith wants to see if there is a common denominator to these three crimes preferably before her career goes down the tubes.

A PRIVATE WAR takes no prisoners. Everyone is either a suspect or a target and the protagonist must make sure she knows friends from foes. Patrick Sheane Duncan creates a fascinating story line, which enables readers to see what happens during a military police investigation. This is an excellent story created by an expert writer.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Average military murder mystery
Review: This is a fair story about a series of murders at a US army base. As in "Courage Under Fire", the main character is a female who is trying to deal with personal issues while trying to do her job. It is a fair, quick read but the plot is thin and the characters are not well developed. Wait for the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Average military murder mystery
Review: This is a fair story about a series of murders at a US army base. As in "Courage Under Fire", the main character is a female who is trying to deal with personal issues while trying to do her job. It is a fair, quick read but the plot is thin and the characters are not well developed. Wait for the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Whose Army Is This?
Review: What a load of proverbial dreck this book is. I bought it based on the reputation of Duncan's other work, namely the movies '84 Charlie MOPIC' and 'Courage Under Fire'. I hope the book versions of those two movies are much better that this terrible story. Our base library here was recently flooded out, and I had planned on giving books I had just read to them to replenish their stock - this will not be one of them. I do not want anyone else to have to suffer through this thing. Duncan makes me wonder about whose Army he is writing about, because it surely is not the US Army I am in. While his main character, LTC Meredith Cleon, is a likable officer, and has gone through some very realistic experiences in her life before the Army, Duncan has her doing things that no female officer in the Army can do currently, i.e.: go to and graduate from Ranger School, for God's sake, and aspire to command an infantry battalion! Duncan seems to be totally unfamiliar with the military, except from what he may have read in newspapers and magazines. After the first couple of pages, I grabbed a pen and started marking all of the unbelievable and silly military related passages. Now my copy is marked up on almost every single page! On page 31, Duncan seems to think that a "one star" and a "Brigadier" are different ranks. On page 44, he discusses how Cleon 'reenlists'. Officers do not 'reenlist' their commissions! He has Cleon go through the dissapointing process of being denied on-post quarters, since none are available, his implication is that she is not able to get an on-post house - in point of fact, single officers are prohibited by law from occupying an entire on-post house. On page 103, he mentions the 'silver chevrons on Meredith's shoulder'. I looked all through my copy of the Army uniform regulation and could find nothing remotely like chevrons that officers wear. His timeline is all out of whack as well. While this story takes place in present times, he states that the old Army .45 pistol was replaced by the new Beretta 9mm 'a few years ago'. The fielding of the Beretta began in the mid '80s - a little more than a few years ago. The list of examples goes on and on, however I can only write a thousand words. Lest one thinks that I am unfairly condeming a murder mystery on the mistakes in specific details of military life that would not be obvious to a civilian reader, let me tell you about the mystery details: the basic story is horrible and poorly written as well. I am no great sleuth, but I had the murderer and his accomplices figured out at roughly the half-way point. A real detective, like the CID investigator in "The General's Daughter" would have had this whole thing solved in a day. Bottom line: the book portrays the military to the civilian reader very poorly, that is to say, not in a bad light, simply inaccurately, and the whole point of the book, the murder mystery, is poorly written and researched. Duncan needs to do his research a little better the next time he undertakes writing about the military.

Rating:
Summary: Whose Army Is This?
Review: What a load of proverbial dreck this book is. I bought it based on the reputation of Duncan's other work, namely the movies '84 Charlie MOPIC' and 'Courage Under Fire'. I hope the book versions of those two movies are much better that this terrible story. Our base library here was recently flooded out, and I had planned on giving books I had just read to them to replenish their stock - this will not be one of them. I do not want anyone else to have to suffer through this thing. Duncan makes me wonder about whose Army he is writing about, because it surely is not the US Army I am in. While his main character, LTC Meredith Cleon, is a likable officer, and has gone through some very realistic experiences in her life before the Army, Duncan has her doing things that no female officer in the Army can do currently, i.e.: go to and graduate from Ranger School, for God's sake, and aspire to command an infantry battalion! Duncan seems to be totally unfamiliar with the military, except from what he may have read in newspapers and magazines. After the first couple of pages, I grabbed a pen and started marking all of the unbelievable and silly military related passages. Now my copy is marked up on almost every single page! On page 31, Duncan seems to think that a "one star" and a "Brigadier" are different ranks. On page 44, he discusses how Cleon 'reenlists'. Officers do not 'reenlist' their commissions! He has Cleon go through the dissapointing process of being denied on-post quarters, since none are available, his implication is that she is not able to get an on-post house - in point of fact, single officers are prohibited by law from occupying an entire on-post house. On page 103, he mentions the 'silver chevrons on Meredith's shoulder'. I looked all through my copy of the Army uniform regulation and could find nothing remotely like chevrons that officers wear. His timeline is all out of whack as well. While this story takes place in present times, he states that the old Army .45 pistol was replaced by the new Beretta 9mm 'a few years ago'. The fielding of the Beretta began in the mid '80s - a little more than a few years ago. The list of examples goes on and on, however I can only write a thousand words. Lest one thinks that I am unfairly condeming a murder mystery on the mistakes in specific details of military life that would not be obvious to a civilian reader, let me tell you about the mystery details: the basic story is horrible and poorly written as well. I am no great sleuth, but I had the murderer and his accomplices figured out at roughly the half-way point. A real detective, like the CID investigator in "The General's Daughter" would have had this whole thing solved in a day. Bottom line: the book portrays the military to the civilian reader very poorly, that is to say, not in a bad light, simply inaccurately, and the whole point of the book, the murder mystery, is poorly written and researched. Duncan needs to do his research a little better the next time he undertakes writing about the military.