Reading Recommendations:

The Delta Solution

This action packed high seas adventure tracks Somali Pirates as they terrorize the coastal waters of the lawless East African Republic, turning the Indian Ocean into a ferocious battleground.

For the past three years, these heavily armed tribal brigades have been capturing and holding for ransom massive cargo ships, especially oil tankers and violently demanding millions of dollars for their return. Pirating out of the tiny Somalian village of Haradheere has become a very lucrative, dangerous business, so much so that the village has its own Stock Exchange with a reputed $78 million in cash, all in crisp $100 bills in a town vault. And each time an owner pays big for the return of their ship, pirates immediately strike again, enraging the the Pentagon more and more by the day. That is, until the "Somali Marines" make a big mistake seizing at gunpoint two United States ships and demanding a $15 million ransom for their return.

Hero Mack Beford previously encountered in Diamondhead and Intercept is deplayed to Seal Team 10 to Form the Delta Platoon. His objective: obliterate the Somali Marines in the middle of the Indian Ocean, at all costs, once and for all.

An International Thriller, 3rd, in series.

The Third Texas Cavalry in the Civil War

Colonel Elkanah Greer's Third Texas Cavalry Regiment, recruited from twenty six counties of Northeastern Texas, was one of the most famous confederate units from the Lone Star State. The original regiments, lawyers, students, politicians, businessmen and farmers, who volunteered to go to war with Greer went on to serve in Missouri and Arkansas under Ben Mc- Culloch in 1861 and 1862 and eventually became part of General "Sul" Ross's brigade in the Army of Tennessee.

The Third Texas fought for the confederacy on battlefields, from the Great Plains to the Appalachian Mountains. From their enlistment in 1861 to their surrender in 1865, three stalwart horse soldiers from East Texas participated in seventy two separate engagements, beginning with Wilson's Creek, Chustenahlah and Pea Ridge in the trans-Mississippi Region, including the decisive campaigns around Vicksburg and Atlanta, and ending with the retreat of Hood's army from Nashville.

But the story of the Third Texas concerns more than troop movements and battle action: Hale sensitively portrays the sufferings and private thoughts of individual cavalrymen and their commanders as they marched back and forth across the Southern landscape. Using material gleaned from diaries and letters, he allows the soldiers and their families to describe their own experiences on the battlefield and at home.

At the wars end, these men returned to civilian life determined to preserve Texas from the social changes resulting from the conflict. Many entered the banks of Redeemers, "became politicians and obstructed the Reconstruction policies of the federal government."

Shirley Doran told me of this book: The Peach Keeper, a novel, Sarah Addison Allen

It's the dubious distinction of thirty year old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam built by Willa's great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water's heyday, and once the town's greatest home, has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well marked boundaries between the haves and have nots.

But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate, socialite do-gooder, Paxton Osgood, of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top flight inn.

And the story goes from there...

See you at Rylander.