Eagle with a Badge, a Texas size compilation of life experiences by a living action hero. The cavalry arrives and most of the time saves the day, so if you enjoy Clancy's Jack Ryan or Cussler's Dirk Pitt this is a must read. This book provides insight into the often hidden and rarely discussed struggle between the dark side of life and the forces of good from the real perspective of one who was there. A man of humble origins becomes an authentic modern day hero using technology of today and his impeccable character of yesterday. Truly a remarkable true life adventure.

Because I live with two pilots, I was very impressed with the descriptions of the flying involved! When I read about incidents in areas that I am familiar with I felt just like I was in the helicopter with the crew! I would recommend this to anyone interested in flying!

I was excited to receive a copy of this book from my wife and after starting it, could not put it down. I have been a private pilot for many years, and have worked in the Criminal Justice system for over 30. While I have many books on both subjects, this was the 1st I have seen that combines both. Paul does what I believe to be an outstanding job of addressing the topics in a manner that holds the interest of a large cross section of backgrounds. He gives enough information for non-pilots to understand the problems associated with the operations, yet does not bore experienced pilots with elementary detail. It is obvious the book is written by a veteran Law Enforcement officer as it provides an insight that captures the emotional impressions of adrenaline enhanced operations involved in this field that are experience by all officers, but is artfully done in a manner I have never read before. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in aviation, in law enforcement, or both.

I enjoyed this book, but wouldn't recommend it except to Eagles fans. For a neutral, Mr. Gordon spends too many pages energetically refuting the apparent bad rap history has given his 1960 Eagle team (has it?) and canonising some of the more prominent members of the team; an entire chapter seems devoted to little more than putting Pete Retzlaff in the Hall of Fame. And his writing isn't particularly strong, at times becoming too bogged down with statistics and ephemera; if someone rushed 18 times for 74 yards, does it really still matter?

There are some reasonably interesting interviews with members of the team and a where-are-they-now epilogue which seems a fitting conclusion. But for those who are less interested in the Eagles and more interested in what football was like back then, there are other, better-written efforts ("Cotton Bowl Days" and "When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore" leap to mind).

Still, Gordon is nevertheless to be applauded for capturing a piece of NFL history with such obvious enthusiasm. Books on 1960s football are always welcome here.

I was a ten year old boy celebrating Christmas at my Grandmother's house in Philly, Dec. 26, when my father pointed my attention to the TV screen and a crazy, happy celebration in the Eagle dressing room after their 1960 championship victory over the Packers. From that moment on, I have been an Eagle fan through and through. In point of fact, I cut my teeth on the '61 Eagles, but it was the set-up from the '60 team that delivered the magic. This book filled-in all the little blanks, all the smallest details of what I wasn't really aware of as the '61 season unfolded - and the heartache that followed as we lost the '61 championship to the Giants by 1/2 a game. To be an Eagle fan is to have known many a season of heartache; even the loss to the Rams last month continues that trend. But what this wonderful book shows is that for one year - one awesome year - the boys in green figured out how to get the job done; it hasn't happened since. Read this great book and learn for yourself why - and how - this '60 squad was a very unique, very special team. If you're an Eagle fan or just a sports fan who enjoys a fine read, this is the one you have to have!

As a kid I grew hope watching the NY Giants. YA Tittle, Frank Gifford, Del Shofner, Sam Huff, etc. were my heros. The Eagles and in particular Chuck ,Concrete Charlie, Bednarik, were not my favorite team or players. I moved down to Philadelphia about 20 years ago and quickly became a Philadelphia sports fan, you could not help it, the fans are great and they live and die with their sports teams, especially, the Eagles. I quickly wanted to know more about the team and their history. I always listen the the radio sports show but they don't really talk about or really understand the history and uniquiness about the Eagles. I read this book and could not put it down. It was not your typical sports book talking about a particular team but a book that told stories about the old time football players. It was great reading about these players! Even though these players were not the players I idolized as a kid, this book helped me idolize them as an adult! If there were more books like this one, no one would be listening to the radio!

I've been an Eagles fan since 1970, and I still think the 1992 team had the most potential, possibly surpassing the 1979-80 Vermeil teams. This book gave me the inside scoop on that (disappointing) season, and also detailed the seeds that led to this team's collapse in the second half of the season, where they started 7-2 and finished 7-9.

I rate it as "mostly" accurate because of little things like the Eagles playing the Phoenix Patriots. (I read the first edition, maybe that error was fixed in a later edition.)

Bringing The Heat is a gridiron epic: a robust 500-page chronicle of the Philadelphia Eagles' tumultuous 1992 season that lifts the lid on the pressure cooker environment of an NFL team desperate for a final shot at the Super Bowl, even as its internal conflicts surpass those unfolding upon the field. Haunted by the death of talismanic defensive tackle Jerome Brown, the team struggles to heal the locker-room rift between its league-leading defense and a misfiring offense led by talented but erratic quarterback Randall Cunningham. It must also contend with the expectations of a team owner and a sports-mad metropolis desperate for a championship to dispel its citywide inferiority complex. Former Philadelphia Enquirer reporter Bowden compares gridiron football to a religion in the devotion it demands from coaches and players, and explores the disconcerting consequences such dedication brings. These include the unpredictable effects upon young black males as they are thrust - sometimes from abject poverty - into a world of wealth but also unrelenting media scrutiny. His attention as well to the saddening regularity of players' marital infidelities portray familial breakdown to be, for some, an inevitable feature of a pro football career. Panoramic in its perspective (the advent of free agency that threatens to dismantle the talented Eagles), intimately personal in its detail (the venomous rage of linebacker Seth Joyner: the extravagant idiosyncrasies of Cunningham), Bringing The Heat is both an absorbing and colorful character-driven tale and a serious and incisive social commentary upon the phenomenon of professional sports in America.

Mark caputures a team I remember in my youth with remarkable detail. Awesome insights. Remarkable profiles of players and coaches. You grow up with them, go on the field with them, and go home with them. I highly recommend this book. Only critism is sometimes the in game detail is overbearing and detailed. This book made me realize one thing that is often overlooked: athletes are humans.

First of all...since this book is so cheap and fills in the gap between two of the best WWII books out there (currahee and 7 roads) it is on my must read list...and with its length it is an easy 2 day read. But I must admit I was just a little bit disappointed...maybe because of Burgett's other two books I became an action junky, but this book seemed to never get going. He does give wonderful insight into the market garden operation and his writing, as usual, is easy flowing and descriptive. But his unit doesn't seem to run into alot of trouble, and if they did it wasn't portrayed in the fashion of his normandy and bastogne experience. Please don't think I am criticizing one of our nations heroes and one of my personal favorites, but I imagined the holland fight to be a bit hairier and those looking for a WWII memoir are probably looking for the same thing.

a great read however and for the price and length a must buy...

This book gives a very forthright account of one of the biggest debacles in WWII. Burgett moves on from Normandy down the road to Arnhem and continues to provide awing details of a paratrooper's life in WWII. What I like most about this book, as well as other Burgett books, he gives credit to all soldiers. At the end, this book highlights the courage of the British soldiers who were literally slaughtered by the Germans, but refused to surrender until ordered to do so (similar to the Screaming Eagles in Bastone).

I thought this book was awesome, great action, real life heroes performing real acts of heroism, it makes you feel proud that you live in America. I thought this book was a great book, I learned a lot from it, some events that happened are pretty unbelievable but its all a true story. so I would recommend this book to anybody who likes a good war story.

I have read Burgett's first three books and they are great reads.
In comparison with those first three books, this is an average read. Why? Very little action. It almost seems like a travel guide with Burgett saying in essence--I went here and then I went there. Burgett is a good author, but I think he is trying to capitalize on his combat experience. His first three books detail the combat experience, but this fourth book could have been cut down to fifty pages, and attached onto his last book. Because of the publisher, they make Burgett get another book out of very minimal material. I don't think there is a fifth book here Don, so don't try.
That said, Burgett is a great author, so please read his first three books about the Normandy Invasion, Battle of the Bulge, and the Holland Campaign. For the WWII historian, these show the true experiences of an American soldier.

I am glad Burgett put out this book as it is a perfect ending to the series. I am sure he had not planned on writing so many books, but they are all so good, I think we all would have missed out if he hadn't. Read them all in order, one after another for the full effect. Good stuff, enjoy!

This 4th installment in the story of Donald Burgett and the WWII
experiences of the 101st Airborne Division is a fitting end to a fine combat memoir. The author picks up where he left off in "Seven Roads to Hell" in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge and traces his experiences from crossing the Rhine River to the end of the war in Hitler's vacation resort in the Alps. Aside from his usual description of battle with the enemy, he also makes liberal use of noncombat scenarios during his unit's advances. His writings will be the standard against which future authors' wartime reminiscences will be compared. I highly recommend this book to all WWII history enthusiasts.

This is tasty little mystery story. It lasts for a short 223 pages and yet it manages to pack in a surprising amount of character development and action between its covers.

The heroine, Amelia Jones, is an endearing young woman taking her first real steps out into the world. Amelia impulsively purchases the Ebbtide Shop, a musty antique store stocked with junk and marvelous finds. She decides to put aside one item, a hurdy-gurdy (or hand organ box), as a furnishing for her upstairs apartment. When the hurdy-gurdy mysteriously stops playing music, Amelia opens the box and discovers a desperate note written on faded paper. The message begins with "They are going to kill me soon..." and ends with "...my name is Hannah." Amelia believes that the note is likely genuine. When questions about Hannah's fate begin to consume her, Amelia ventures further out into the world on a quest to find out the truth. Along the way, she meets many interesting people and becomes involved in a variety of unusual circumstances. The plot is a charming mix of mysterious happenings and coming-of-age realizations that make the reader vitally interested in Amelia's story and how it intertwines with Hannah's.

Though this book is shorter than I usually read, I highly recommend it. I think that it is particularly ideal for anyone wishing to read poolside or during their lunchbreak, because the storyline is always interesting and easy to get back into should life interrupt one's reading.

In a story that seems right out of Dorothy Gilman's imagination, I found this story in a musty suitcase in my parents' attic at the age of 12. It was in a book of Readers' Digest Abridged books for 1979. Also included were 2 very excellent stories and one pretty good one (excellent: Hungry as the Sea, Flesh and Spirit; pretty good: The Passing Bells). I loved the story from the moment I read the opening words. This is an anomaly for me. Usually it takes me time to get into the rhythm and flow of just about any book I read (the only other notable exception is Like Water for Chocolate, which is positively delicious). This book grabbed me from the instant I started reading it and I couldn't put it down, literally, till the surprise ending.
I especially love the characterization of Amelia. Here is this shy, rather mousy girl who doesn't seem like much of anything. Then suddenly she finds herself drawn into a mystery after finding a note from a woman who is sure she will be murdered soon. Quite the opposite of her portrayal at the beginning of the book, Amelia soon proves to readers and to herself that she is quite extraordinary. We realize she is resourceful, intuitive, and intelligent. In fact it is only from this investigation of a murder plot that Amelia really grows up from the stunted emotional state she has been living in since her mother's suicide. Plus reading the book in the true unabridged form is wonderful. I always felt that reading abridged books is a bit like eating dehydrated foods. You're made to think that you've lost nothing but the taste really suffers.
So I'd recommend this book to anyone, mystery aficianado or not. It's gripping, intelligent, and actually funny. Now I'm sixteen and though I've outgrown a lot of other things..., I still love this book.

Although "The Tightrope Walker" succeeds very well as a straight mystery, the message it conveys is far beyond that. It tells the story of Amelia Jones, an introverted, somewhat sad young woman, who discovers an unsolved murder, and embarks upon a quest to discover what really happened.

As Amelia searches for the truth, she meets some very interesting characters, and finds out some very poignant truths about herself. A wonderful story. I only wish that Ms. Gilman would write "In the Land of the Golden Warriors" to go along with "The Maze in the Heart of the Castle."

"Be careful what you wish for---"

Lord Peter makes a light-hearted wager with friend Charles Parker. To win, he was must prove a murder was committed in the death of a wealthy, elderly lady who had terminal cancer. Said lady, Miss Agatha Dawson, had made no will, and the medical certificate said "heart failure."

True, her young doctor was unhappy about the situation. He had thought Miss Dawson's death entirely too sudden and had made strenuous inquiries, so many in fact, the people of her village turned against him, and he had to give up his practice there. In fairness, it must be stated that the good doctor did seem rather egotistical, and perhaps he was just miffed that his prognosis of six more months was a shade too optimistic.

Further investigation divulges that Miss Dawson's young ex-servant has died mysteriously of a heart attack in a meadow. The more Lord Peter investigates, the more the injuries and mysteries pile up. A young lawyer has a near miss, Lord Peter is drugged, a young village lady is murdered while vacationing by persons unknown, and Lord Peter's associate is held hostage.

Lord Peter wins his wager, but at what a cost! The reader is left with an interesting moral dilemma. Is it better to let a complacent murderer be to avert the consequences of his or her obsession?

This is one of the earlier Lord Peter Wimsey books. It has a great deal of banter---what some would call silly dialogue, and poor Charles, Peter's brother-in-law to be and Scotland Yard detective, looks a bit like a stuffy fool. But in this book the mystery is real and the stakes are high. This will be good news to some Sayers readers who feel cheated when they find nothing of import has happened at all! I was relieved to note "Unnatural Death" is pre-Harriet Vane, as I find her perfection tiresome; other readers may miss her. This is a complex tale and will keep you turning the pages.

I turned to Dorothy L. after exhausting most of Agatha Christie's works (yes, she wrote about eighty novels and plays, and I've read the majority of the novels, primarily the Poirot and Marple tales, as they are my favorites). I was pleased by Sayers's methodical and thourough spinning of a detective story, as well as the charm and wit of her hero, Lord Peter Wimsey.

Unnatural Death has become one of my favorite Wimsey tales. It has the suspense and threat of danger that some of her other books lack. Wimsey and Parker's unravelling of an intricately woven plan of crime is really a literary feat.

If you felt that suspense and chills were lacking in some of the other Sayers tales, give this one a shot. I will grant you, it takes a little while to dig into this story before it really gets going, but it is well worth the effort!

I found this book to be probably the best of all of Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. The plotting is tight and all the threads are pulled together for the reader. A nice touch is that neither Lord Peter nor Parker are superhuman detectives who miraculously discern the truth at every step. Instead, they are allowed to make mistakes and even be a bit slow sometimes in getting to the truth, which makes them completely believeable. But the best part of the book was the great atmosphere - Ms Sayers brings 1920's England vividly to life so much so you feel you are actually there. I liked the way the story shifts back and forth between London and the countryside. Also, what fun to be introduced to Mr. Murbles and Miss Climpson - surely some of the most entertaining characters ever created in detective fiction! I read all the mysteries written subsequently and was a little disappointed that their characters are not more fully developed in later books - both appear in other novels but not to the extent I would have wished. All in all, it's an unputdownable mystery - try it and you will be hooked!

This book is a reasonable introduction to the world of aviation 'Black Programs', but use it as a stepping stone to titles such as Ben Rich's or Jay Miller's books on Lockheed's Skunk Works.
Competent rather than outstanding

As one who couldn't tell you the difference between a J57 engine and RJ-43-MA-11 ramjet, I'd still highly recommend this to any reader who wants to more about Black Projects but is leery about buying a book because they don't want to be confused by technical humdrum.
Peebles book is quite the contrary and it's very entertaining for both an aviation novice reader like myself as well as any aficionado of aircraft (a friend of mine who is currently getting his pilot's license also read it and enjoyed it). Granted, you must have a little understanding of military aircraft. If you would be unable to decipher between a P-51 Mustang and F-4 Phantom, it may be too much.

Peebles writes with colorful narrative on some of the US's most astonishing and mysterious aircraft in the last 50 years. Included in his book are chapters on the first US jet (XP-59A Airacomet), the spy plane Francis Gary Powers made famous (U-2 Aquatone), the birth of the stealth fighter (F-117A), 'borrowed' MiG's flying in the Nevada desert, reconnaissance drone vehicles, the Star Wars-like A-12 Oxcart, as well as the current Black Project plane - Aurora.

In each chapter, Pebbles writes on what precipitated the need for a new secret aircraft, how the craft took shape behind closed doors, its test flights, and how it performed in action. He includes a plethora of colorful stories on how the U-2 was named, how a US Navy aircraft carrier was 'captured' by the US Air force, and tales of gorillas smoking cigars and flying in the southwest desert.

Pebbles also goes into great detail about two controversial topics of today - Area 51 and the Aurora. Throughout the book, Peebles gives the history of Area 51, how it originated as a base at Groom Lake all the way up to the flying saucer tales of today. Conspiracy theorists will be disappointed as well as many Black Ops devotees looking for proof that the Aurora exists.

In conclusion, I thought Peebles book was a great, intriguing look into some of our nation's biggest secrets of the Cold War that's also a quick read (only 292 pages of text) and I highly recommend it.

I had picked up "Dark Eagles" primarly because it was one of very few books to present information on "Have Donut" and similar projects in which the United States tested captured MiGs and other Soviet aircraft. I was pleasantly suprised to find that the rest of this book is as superbly researched and detailed as Peebles' glimpse into the testing of foreign equipment.

Peebles discusses, in amazing detail, the developments of such famous aircraft as the U-2, A-12, SR-71, F-117, "Have Blue" and "Tacit Blue." Peebles also delves into the history of the less-glamarous unmanned platforms such as the trisonic D-21 ("Tagboard") and various models of the Model 147 Firebee, used extensively in Vietnam.

This book is a must for anyone interested in black project aviation. It is well written and thoroughly researched, and is engaging to both the causal and technical reader.

I was dissappointed with the book. There's no in depth discussion on any event. It just reads on and states facts like those in High School text books. Didn't capture me at all.

A huge book that traces the history of America from pre-Columbus through present day. Although considered by many to be a "text book" for study, it is not written in that format. It reads easily and clearly. It is non-biased and informative. The pictures are helpful. It's the first book on American history that I have been able to finish. Although expensive, I think that every book collection should have a copy and it is an essential part of any history collection.

My AP US History class used this book as its textbook. Statistics speak for themselves: anyone who read and studied the book got a 5! It is one of the most comprehensive texts in American history ever published. George Tindall, the primary author, is a wonderful and knowledgable man who I have met in Chapel Hill,NC. An excellent buy!

Extremely stale and old fashioned writing make this a bible-like read. Skip this one. There's a reason you couldn't find it before this reprint. Once you put it down you'll never pick it up again. Reminicent of your high school history text book.

Wallace Breem, from start to finish of this book, has it right. Long have I searched for a historical fiction that combines depth of description with a fine story. Other writers who have taken on the end of the Roman empire who shall remain nameless (**ahem-Jack Whyte!!) fall short in accuracy, despite the bombast with which they 'educate' in their books' historical notes. The mood of the era is beautifully colored in pastels of winter and decay. Eagle in the Snow is a difficult book to get your hands on, but is of immense enjoyment to serious fans of history and historical fiction. Breem stands tall amongst the likes of McCullough, Pressfield and Cornwell.

After having finished this gripping, touching, and historically accurate page turner I HAD to write a review to offset the previous one. Anyone who thinks this book is stale is missing the point woefully. The book is written in a terse style because its supposed to represent the bleakness of the decline of the Roman empire, but that doesn't mean it isn't at turns humorous, touching, and beautiful. This is THE definitive historical fiction regarding the fall of Rome. I only hope someone makes a movie out of it! If you love tales of Rome, particularly those which are militarily and historically accurate but still immensely moving and entertaining, buy this book today--you won't regret it.