Kim Zupan Buries Up The Ploughmen

The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan is a bleak and haunting novel that brings together a brutally adept and aging killer with a venerable and lonely sheriff's deputy in Copper Country, Montana. Between the bars of a county jail cell, these two men forge an unlikely bond as killer John Gload begins to tell his guard Valentine Millimaki about his sociopathic tendencies.

Millimaki, surprisingly introspective and thoughtful, initially begins listening to the 70-something killer as a means to draw out confessions and close open cases that had plagued Montana and other law enforcement agencies for years. But as time wears on before the killer can be brought to trial, Millimaki begins to seek counsel from the wise and unflappable man.

The Ploughmen seizes on an uneasy bond between a criminal and jailor.

After Millimaki draws the night shift as the sheriff's newest recruit, he discovers that Gload's insomnia is the only place he will find any solace during the the long hours of solitude. And as the two men exchange stories, they eventually find common ground in their appreciation for both farming and nature.

On one hand, these two men could not be more different. Gload, who confesses to committing his first murder at 14, turned away from farming and toward a life of crime after deciding he never had to do a day's worth of honest work again. Millimaki, on the other hand, turned away from it to escape a haunting memory of his mother hanging herself in the family barn. And in other, they recognize one in the same as ploughmen — one who tills the earth to bury his victims and the other who digs them up.

As the two men draw figuratively closer, Millimaki begins to confide in Gload about his failing marriage. Without missing a beat, the old man begins to give the deputy advice on which deputies to be weary of for one reason or another. Such exchanges become increasing valuable to both men until it becomes increasingly unclear whether or not Gload is sincere in his sentiment or indoctrinating an impressionable young deputy much like he did the boy who accompanied him on a series of murders that open the book.

Eventually, the novel does take a turn toward violence. All the cards are laid out: whether Gload is baiting or protecting the deputy, whether Millimaki has begun to envy the prisoner as a man of action, whether this person or that person will be brutally murdered for their carelessness in crossing paths with either man.

A few more graphs about author Kim Zupan.

A native Montanan, Zupan lives in Missoula and grew up in and around Great Falls, where much of The Ploughmen is set. For 25 years, he made a living as a carpenter while pursuing another passion — writing fiction.

Zupan has plenty of experiences to draw upon for his work. He has also worked as a smelter man, pro rodeo bareback rider, ranch hand, Alaska salmon fisherman and teacher. He currently teaches carpentry at Missoula College and holds an MFA from the University of Montana.

As a debut novel, Zupan hits the mark in allowing the relationship between the two men to happen on its own terms. Where he misses a beat or two is the opening chapters when Zupan sets the vastness of Montana at the feet of his readers with passages that meander on beautifully but not poignantly. It isn't until a few chapters in where he finds the right pace to the story as well as the stories that lead up to this one.

The Ploughmen By Kim Zupan Buries 7.4 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale.

Kim Zupan tackles the last remnants of the American West at a time when civilization wanted to master its vastness and outlaw highwaymen like Gload no longer had a place. And he tackles it with an exerted command for the language and fully realized, masterful characters who are equally capable of earning sympathy as much as disdain.

The Ploughmen: A Novel by Kim Zupan is available on Amazon. You can also download the novel for iBooks or listen to the audiobook via iTunes. The story is narrated by Jim Meskimen, who brings both characters to life within the rugged landscape of Montana. Barnes & Noble also carries The Ploughman by Kim Zupan.

Deutermann Takes A Dive With Ghosts

It took a special kind of naval crewman to volunteer for submarine duty. And although they fared better than Axis forces, submarine service sustained the highest mortality rate of all branches of the U.S. military during World War II. Approximately one out of every five submariners was lost.

It is also in this murky and dangerous world that author P.T. Deutermann casts his latest military suspense novel, focusing in on an improbable operation to sink or damage an aircraft carrier that would rival Yamato-class battleships at the end of World War II. To accomplish this mission, the U.S. Navy decides to send a single submarine to breach the Bungo Strait and sink or damage the massive ship.

At the helm of the USS Dragonfish is Lieutenant Commander Gar Hammond, an aggressive captain with a reckless habit of chasing down enemy destroyers. Equipped with the newest advances in sonar, it is up to Hammond and his crew to evade detection, navigate mine fields, enter an impossibly narrow and shallow channel, engage the enemy ship, and then escape out to sea again.

The Ghosts Of Bungo Suido is an insider seat at the end of World War II. 

The novel is set at the end of 1944, shortly after American reconnaissance aircraft operating out of China discovered the carrier hiding inside a 1,000-foot-long dry dock disguised as an industrial building. From there, Ghosts Of Bungo Suido tells a story that covers the last days of the war in three acts. 

The first act follows Hammond as captain of his submarine. The second act shares his experiences as a prisoner of war, with a sweeping view of Japan. And the third, the denouement, completes the story with courtroom drama that resolves loose ends during the dysfunctional transition from war to peace. 

P.T. Deutermann does a fine job imagining Hammond as a rugged and wildly independent sea captain who undergoes a conflicted transformation from confidence and clarity to surrender and resignation. As goes the captain, so goes the book. The first act defines Hammond as a tough-as-nails captain, but also sets these razor-sharp capabilities at odds with a command decision most consider suicide.

Although he comes across as stiff, Deutermann does his best to humanize his protagonist. Early on, the author attempts to do this by having Hammond connect with and confide in a female JAG officer. Later, after he is captured, empathy for the Japanese becomes a mechanism to transform him. 

While never sympathetic, Hammond spends considerable time attempting to understand the Japanese perspective with a relentless logical analysis and shared experience. Hammond is there when the ill-prepared last hope of the Japanese Navy is sunk, the bombing of Kure, and the denotation of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Hagasaki. 

It is during these experiences and others that he attempts to reconcile the enemy's sense of honor and floundering survival. Doing so is interesting but it also proves to be a hinderance in the emotional development of the book. It never truly captures the claustrophobic feel that accompanies most submarine stories nor does it revere the psychological strain felt by prisoners like Louis Zamperini. 

A few graphs about author P.T. Deutermann. 

Boston-native P.T. Deutermann is no stranger to military thrillers. He has written 15 novels, including The Last Man and Pacific Glory, which won the W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. He also served 26 years in the military, which began on the destroyer USS Morton before he was assigned to Swift class gunboats operating in Vietnam.

He later returned to serving aboard destroyers, eventually assuming command of Destroyer Squadron 25. Beyond his personal experiences, his father served as vice admiral during World War II and both his uncle and older brother were submariners. Their stories helped Deutermann inform this novel.

Ghosts Of Bungo Suido By P.T. Deutermann Ascends To 6.2 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

The pace and authenticity of Ghosts of Bungo Suido makes for a galvanizing read. There are dozens of events that will stay with readers, including the sinking of the Shinano, which was the name of the real Yamato-class aircraft carrier launched by the Japanese Navy and sunk by the USS Archer-Fish. Deutermann puts us on and below decks, recreating the last few hours it remained afloat.

The Ghosts Of Bungo Suido is available from Amazon. You can also order the novel from Barnes & Noble or download it for iBooks. The audiobook, The Ghosts Of Bungo Suido, is narrated by Dick Hill, who lends a well-seasoned voice to Hammond.

David Kowalski Keeps Dead Company

In one of the most inventive alternative reality stories published this year, David Kowalski creates a very different world from the one we know. In his novel, The Company Of The Dead, the United States entertains a second succession, permanently splitting the country in two. Germany and Japan emerge as dominant world powers. Mammoth-sized helium-filled military airships roam the sky.

All of these sweeping differences and others can be traced to a single event. On the eve of April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic never hits an iceberg. So rather than having to brave icy waters 375 miles south of Newfoundland, more than 2,200 passengers arrive in New York City and are greeted by the buzz of expected fanfare. Or, in yet another timeline, it sinks three hours later with different survivors.

Either way, John Jacob Astor survives. As the wealthiest American in the United States, this German-born businessman becomes the primary catalyst in keeping the United States out of World War I. But without this unifying moment in American history, old arguments that lingered after the Civil War resurface while Europe clings to its Imperial past.

Kowalski's debut is the epic alternative history and time travel adventure. 

At the heart of the story is Major Joseph Kennedy, grand-nephew to John F. Kennedy and grandson of Joseph Patrick Kennedy (who was actually killed in action during World War II). In the Kowalski timeline, World War II never happens. Germany wins the Great War without American intervention.

Major Kennedy is a special ops commander for the Second Confederacy. His mission is to organize a covert operation to reunite the United States. If he succeeds, his company will establish a new world order to thwart an ever-expansive Imperial Japan that already had several footholds in North America: Alaska, New York, and a significant portion of the Pacific coastline.

This dramatic and ambitious plan may (or may not) have worked, but Kennedy becomes distracted from Operation Camelot when he learns the truth. The world he as he knows it should have never existed. Worse, the world he knows is about to rush headlong into a global conflict that doesn't end with nuclear weapons like World War II did. It will begin with nuclear weapons and eventually end with every living thing on the planet snuffed out. He and his team want to stop it.

If there is even a hint of head-spinning confusion at the thought of this backdrop, expect plenty more moments like it inside The Company Of The Dead. Although Kowalski keeps his timeline in meticulous order, reconciling the names, dates, locations, and connections isn't always easy.

In fact, keeping the alternative world map handy is a must as the author spins various layers of change that occur on an individual, national and global scale. It may even catch some readers off guard because the opener is vastly different than the larger body of work that is about to unfold.

The first few pages don't begin with an alternate reality, but rather the cause. As with the climatic end, it all hinges on the sinking, unsinking, or alternative sinking of the Titanic as the semi-reluctant time traveler Jonathan Wells has done a hundred times before. And with each successive strike or counter strike, time is becoming too strained under the weight of a tightening loop. It's about to snap.

The Company Of The Dead is ambitious and bloated because it has to be. 

The size of The Company Of The Dead at over 750 pages (832 paperback) makes for easy criticism as plenty claim it could be cut back by as much as one-third. And yet, no one pinpoints what might be cut beyond a character or two (which would have profound consequences). But I couldn't cut any of it.

As much as the book leans long in the storytelling, almost all of it needs to be included. In fact, Kowalski could have entertained making it longer, as some characters do feel bland and some suffer motivational flips that happen on a whim. More troublesome is the style variation.

Depending on where you are in the story, The Company Of The Dead reads like a different book. It can be easily described as alternative history, science fiction epic, military narrative, covert thriller, conspiratorial saga, or indie adventure. But it never reads like this all at once. It's one or any combination of those descriptions, depending on the page. The shifts can be a bit jarring at times.

What is constant in The Company Of The Dead is its vivid storytelling. Picturing massive stratolite airships navigating wind currents in the upper atmosphere feels as real as walking the decks of the Titanic. Connecting the dots between time travel and conspiracy theories like Area 51 and Roswell is made effortless. Visiting the still segregated south, Japanese-occupied New York, or brush-covered and largely undeveloped American Southwest has an air of familiarity as if this timeline exists.

Prior to writing his first novel, Kowalski practiced medicine in Western Sydney, Australia. His first writings had nothing to do with fiction. He saw his work published in professional medical journals. He didn't have time to write anything else. This novel took between seven and 10 years to write.

The Company Of The Dead By David Kowalski Turns Over 6.1 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale.

Almost unbelievably, the novel started as short story, something that played out on the decks of the Titanic. The universally known tragedy, Kowalski has said, prompts many people to wonder what might have happened had it arrived safely. It was from this notion that hundreds of well-researched ripples led him to the world he wanted to create. And then he had to invent a way to get it back.

The Company Of The Dead is not for everyone, but it is for anyone who has been looking for an alternative reality epic that was born of out of science fiction conspiracy. The Company Of The Dead by David Kowalski is currently available at Barnes & Noble or the novel can be purchased from Amazon. It is also available for download on iBooks. The book was originally published in Australia in 2004, taking almost a decade to land stateside.