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Nonfiction Doughboys, carrier pigeons, and blind luck NEVER IN FINER COMPANY: The Men of the Great War's Lost Battalion By Edward G. Lengel 368 pp. Da Capo Reviewed By William C. Crawford War produces instantaneous heroes as well as those who percolate up to public prominence over time. The men of the Lost Battalion fall squarely into both camps. This book illustrates how makeshift, multiethnic, military units made up of mostly poor, Gotham City soldiers rose up to demonstrate surprising battlefield valor during the Great War. When the Yanks were surrounded with no food and little ammunition, our boys had a plucky way of shifting the odds miraculously back in their favor. They stuck together and leaned on their New York City roots. Blind luck and a wounded carrier pigeon also played into this saga, but mostly dogged personal determination overcame blatant command mistakes to produce a gripping rescue of US soldiers hopelessly trapped in the Argonne Forest. A disparate...

Fiction What if they’d gone underground? THE MIDDLEMAN By Olen Steinhauer 368 pp. Minotaur Reviewed by Sarah Corbett Morgan What if the Occupy movement, or Bernie Sanders for that matter, had gone underground and formed a political terrorist cell after the 2016 election? What if, in an eerie and nonviolent way, thousands of young people quietly walked away from society—disappeared—and caused a local and ultimately national news sensation?  What if corrupt FBI agents then infiltrate the terrorist cell? These are the premises of Olen Steinhauer's new novel, The Middleman . Author of ten other books, plus the acclaimed TV series,  Berlin Station , he has written a thriller for these troubled times. The story unfolds in 2017-18 and Trump is president. Left-wing groups and protesting in the streets, the FBI is aware and monitoring the situation. Martin Bishop, the charismatic leader of the terrorist group, the Massive Brigade, is a wanted man, and FBI agent Rac...

--> Fiction And I picked the place myself DIG YOUR GRAVE A Gus Parker and Alex Mills Novel By Steven Cooper 368 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Mystery writer Steven Cooper returns with the second novel in his new mystery series featuring an unlikely pair of sleuths, and it’s even better than the first entry, Desert Remains , which is also reviewed on this site. Whenever Phoenix homicide detective Alex Mills is tasked with investigating a bizarre and brutal murder, he turns to his close friend, eccentric psychic Gus Parker, for help – something the police department likes to keep on the down low in these cynical times. Gus is not your typical psychic, as “some people regard him as an aging hippie himself, what with his long raffish hair, the beaded bracelets, the occasional Yoga class, and of course, the psychic visions.” His psychic powers began manifesting when he was a teenager; his visions are unpredictable, varying from clairvoyance to precognition. He n...

--> Nonfiction Diverse fauna down under WALKER’S MAMMALS OF THE WORLD: Monotremes, Marsupials, Afrotherians, Xenarthrans, and Sundatherians By Ronald M. Nowak 757 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press Reviewed by David E. Hoekenga, M. D. Walker’s First Edition of Mammals of the World has been a treasured possession of mine since it was published in 1964. Two volumes with black and white illustrations in a black slipcase followed me as a zoology student and then later in medical school as an amateur naturalist. With over five thousand mammals alive in the world today, keeping track of them on seven continents is no easy task. I hoped to be able to compare the new volume at 750-plus pages to the first volume of my old Walker’s , but the new volume works differently. It is based on the oldest evolutionary clades or groupings, starting with the echidnas and platypuses – egg-layers all. Then come Tasmanian devils and bandicoots. None of these creatures are terribly familiar, but the ne...