Review: Welcome Home, Captain Harding (Captain Harding #3) by Elliott Mackle

Joe is back! Welcome Home, Captain Harding! I was really worried about him at the end of Captain Harding and His Men when he was shipped off to Vietnam. I even thought that was going to be the setting for this third book. Instead it is now1970, "Hair" is playing on Broadway and the "Age of Aquarius" still has a grip on the country, particularly on the West Coast -- the perfect setting for Joe's misadventures.

After finishing an 18-month tour in Vietnam, Joe is assigned to the Castle Air Force Base, California, working with old friend and father figure Colonel Bruce "Ops" Opstein, commander for operations for the 39th Bomb Wing. Joe hasn't even shaken the jet lag, nightmares, or fear of crotch rot when Ops shows him a pictures of himself in Hawaii with both Cotton and his mother Ambassador Elizabeth Boardman. Joe is under surveillance. Joe's new assignment at Castle spying on arrogant, hot-dogging bomber pilots, and organizing an air show to counteract the whole anti-war movement does not come as sweet news either. Soon Ops and Joe realize the whole place is FUBAR -- fucked up before all recognition -- as pilots go around with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll on their minds, and the higher ups turn out to be even worse than that! Joe's career comes under fire from all directions as the men or buddies he works with are more a detriment than a help, and covering his ass to stay in the military closet becomes almost impossible.

There I am, reading the beginning of the story and I'm already yelling at Joe for pulling dumb moves and following his dick instead of thinking things through before leaping into the fire. By now, we all know that's just Joe, but that didn't matter to me. Cotton is now a freshman at Berkeley and slowly getting pulled into the anti-war movement, but they are together and that's what becomes important to Joe. He is in love with the now nineteen-year old Cotton, so you can only imagine that these two are not necessarily thinking with their "little grey cells." No, not possible. Not even after Ops warns Joe that he has received more anonymous photographs. To further complicate matters, Sam shows up at Joe's place in Merced. Now a TWA pilot, he is a favorite buddy/hookup Joe met at the Wheelus AFB in Lybia. Cotton figures out the relationship angle and decides to get involved. Will there be room for one more in a committed relationship?

Let me begin by saying that I don't usually get so involved with characters that I actually worry for them, etc. I try to maintain a certain distance, even when connecting with characters, so that I can at least be somewhat objective about their actions. But, I can't seem to help myself with Joe Harding and I know that is one of the aspects of this series that makes me love it so much.

Elliott Mackle does it to me every time. I began reading Welcome Home, Captain Harding and didn't stop until that last page was turned. It was an emotional roller-coaster. I was yelling at Joe because he wasn't being careful enough, while simultaneously getting upset because he HAD to be careful in order to keep his military career going. But, coming back to reality and keeping in mind that this is historical fiction, Elliott Mackle again captures the times and situations beautifully.

The necessity to stay closeted vs. the need for love and intimacy is one that Mackle tackles in this book with even more vigor than he did in the past two installments. The frustration, the witch hunt, and how far everyone is willing to go to protect themselves are all well rendered by Mackle as he uses humor through misadventures, miscalculations, and manipulations to get his point across. The same happens with Mackle's deft handling of the issues that plagued the Air Force pilots at the base during that time, and with his portrayal of 1970 San Francisco by incorporating the two differing perspectives dealing with the key issue of that time period in history about the war in Vietnam, with the Peace Movement on one side and the military on the other as seen from Joe's point of view.

The military details that Mackle includes in this novel are again fantastic, although I did notice that they took less space than in the two previous installments. Similarly, those pesky military acronyms have lessened, or are now explained to the reader along the way. Mackle continues the tradition of combining Joe's often humorous misadventures with seriously tough issues such as domestic violence among the military, drug abuse, cover ups, and persecution of gay servicemen in the military. The usually tight dialog is not as consistently tight as it is in other installments, but it is still great, providing that quick pacing that makes these books such excellent reads.

Welcome Home, Captain Harding is the third and last book of Elliott Mackle's Captain Harding trilogy. As such, it ends Joe's adventures and misadventures with a bang. I didn't, however, expect anything less from Mr. Mackle whose works I've come to highly enjoy along the way. I cannot tell you how much I love these three books, or how much I am going to miss this character. I am a fan. I definitely recommend Welcome Home, Captain Harding, but more so, I highly recommend the trilogy as a whole.

Category: LGBT Historical Fiction/Mystery Suspense
Series: Captain Harding
Publisher/Release Date: Lethe Press/September 1, 2013
Format: Paperback/Digital
Grade: B+

Visit Elliott Mackle here.

Complete Trilogy -- Grade: A- (4.7 Stars) 
Captain Harding's Six Day War, #1
Captain Harding and His Men, #2
Welcome Home, Captain Harding, #3

Reading Lots! CarnieFun, Tim Z. Hernandez, Elliott Mackle & Summer Lovin'

Carniepunk Anthology
Release Date: July 23, 2013
Gallery Books

Come one, come all! The Carniepunk Midway promises you every thrill and chill a traveling carnival can provide. But fear not! Urban fantasy’s biggest stars are here to guide you through this strange and dangerous world. . . .

RACHEL CAINE’s vampires aren’t child’s play, as a naïve teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in “The Cold Girl.” With “Parlor Tricks,” JENNIFER ESTEP pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. SEANAN McGUIRE narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after twenty years in “Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.” KEVIN HEARNE’s Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street” that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, ROB THURMAN reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in “Painted Love.”

I'm enjoying this anthology. It has a long list of stories by accomplished urban fantasy authors. Those stories so far are a combination of standalone and short stories related to already established series with carnivals as the central focus, however, they couldn't be more different. Clowns, you ask? I am about half-way through the book and so far no clowns, but the setting gives this anthology a certain dark flavor that I am enjoying.

Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez
Release Date: August 29, 2013
The University of Arizona Press

In this love story of impossible odds, award-winning writer Tim Z. Hernandez weaves a rich and visionary portrait of Bea Franco, the real woman behind famed American author Jack Kerouac’s “The Mexican Girl.” Set against an ominous backdrop of California in the 1940s, deep in the agricultural heartland of the Great Central Valley, Mañana Means Heaven reveals the desperate circumstances that lead a married woman to an illicit affair with an aspiring young writer traveling across the United States.

When they meet, Franco is a migrant farmworker with two children and a failing marriage, living with poverty, violence, and the looming threat of deportation, while the “college boy” yearns to one day make a name for himself in the writing world. The significance of their romance poses vastly different possibilities and consequences.

Mañana Means Heaven deftly combines fact and fiction to pull back the veil on one of literature’s most mysterious and evocative characters. Inspired by Franco’s love letters to Kerouac and Hernandez’s interviews with Franco, now in her nineties and living in relative obscurity, the novel brings this lost gem of a story out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

This is a book that got my attention at "The Mexican Girl" and Jack Kerouac. It combines fact and fiction, but I must admit that my curiosity about "Terry's" character or as it turns out, Bea Franco, got the best of me as soon as I read the book summary. So far it is more than worth the read!

Welcome Home, Captain Harding by Elliott Mackle
Series: Captain Harding, #3
Release Date: September 1, 2013
Lethe Press Books

Returning to California after eighteen terrifying months in Vietnam, Captain Joe Harding is assigned a trio of duties: assisting his fatherly former commander at base operations, spying on misbehaving bomber pilots and organizing an air show designed to counter the anti-war fever sweeping the state.

Meanwhile, his much younger tennis partner has enrolled at Cal Berkeley, enmeshed himself in pacifist politics and resumed his role as Joe's lover. When a playmate from Wheelus, a one-time fighter pilot now flying for TWA, shows up at Joe's house in Merced, the three men must navigate the joys and difficulties inherent in creating their own sort of ''welcome home.''

Continuing the adventures and misadventures begun in Elliott Mackle's acclaimed Captain Harding series Joe and his fellow officers and men are up against a hot-dogging, risk-taking aircraft commander, a pair of drug-abusing co-pilots and a married administrator with a taste for sexual blackmail. When a Broadway show causes a death in the family, a test flight goes terribly wrong and Joe's honor and patriotism are questioned, he must fight to clear his name and rebuild his imperiled career.

Welcome Home, Captain Harding is the last book in the Captain Harding trilogy by Elliott Mackle. I absolutely love this character, and so far I've loved the first and second books! I'm really enjoying this last book, Joe is still Joe. *g* But, I'm also a bit sad that Joe's adventures are coming to an end.
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What else have I been reading?

I've yet to move on from my summer reading and picked up Summer Lovin' with Chrissy Munder, Clare London, JL Merrow, Josephine Myles, and Lou Harper (Pink Squirrel Press, 2013). This is an M/M Romance collection with five novellas. So far I really enjoyed Chrissy Munder's "Summer Hire" and loved "Lost and Found on Lindisfarne" by JL Merrow. I'm reading this one slowly and in between other books. . . stretching out the summer fun!

Summer is here, and the loving is easy! Slake your thirst for romance with Summer Lovin'—an anthology for lazy days and summer sunshine.

Go skinny-dipping in a disused quarry. Hang out with the boys in the band. Meet a bad boy made good, and one with a shy smile that hides a dark secret. Or maybe get your heart pillaged by a Viking re-enactor.

With gentle humor, hot sauce and a hefty scoop of romance, enjoy a quintet of sultry stories of men loving men from Clare London, Chrissy Munder, JL Merrow, Josephine Myles, and Lou Harper.

The mercury's not the only thing that's rising!

What are you reading?

Review: Captain Harding and His Men (Captain Harding #2) by Elliott Mackle

Last year I fell in love with Joe Harding's shenanigans in Captain Harding's Six Day War, so of course I picked up the sequel Captain Harding and His Men by Elliott Mackle as soon as it released. I'm so glad because Captain Joe Harding is at it again at Wheelus and this time the story is even better!

It all takes place in 1969 at the Wheelus U.S. Military Air Base in Libya, and while the Vietnam War is going at full force our man Joe is stuck acting as administrator and right hand man to the current a-hole Colonel in charge. Joe barely survived his last adventures, but this time his problems become even more serious when an unscheduled C-130 airplane crashes on the runway and a VIP dies. Having learned that controlling information is the best way to cover his butt, Joe immediately makes sure he has the original flight plan and crew list in his possession, but when paperwork disappears, the CIA is mentioned,  and one of his fellow officers is thrown from a casino tower instigating an investigation by the Pentagon that will end careers, Joe finds himself in trouble up to his adorable little ass! Of course Joe is devious, cunning, manipulative and when not led by his balls to risk life and career, brilliant. He can figure it all out, right?

Unfortunately for Joe fear of being outed as gay in the military is magnified along with the rest of his problems when his unquestionable lack of control and discretion takes over and he sleeps with almost eighteen year-old Cotton while on leave in Gstaad, placing more than his future on the line when they are discovered in a compromising situation. The thought of ending up in Leavenworth worries Joe enough to make him vomit on the flight home, but being young, virile and with a high libido these worries only slow him down, and soon he's back at Wheelus missing Cotton, but making due by going for his regularly scheduled 'rubdown' sessions with buddy Hal, and throughout the story making a couple of new male acquaintances including one that rocks his world!!

I loved this book. In Captain Harding and His Men Elliott Mackle again excels at immediately capturing the reader's attention as well as time and place to develop atmosphere. However, what I love about this series so far is that the military details are outstanding without making the reader yawn with boredom. On the contrary, both stories are fun and funny while still managing to deal with serious issues pertinent to military life during that specific time in history. Joe's voice as narrator is unmistakable, and in this book in particular I think that narration just gets better. Mackle gives readers an idea of what happened in the first book, however I do recommend that Captain Harding's Six Day War be read first for a better understanding, and enjoyment, of this series.

Captain Harding and His Men is a military suspense full of action with an involved mystery and highly amusing moments provided by the narrator's voice. The mystery/suspense is full of twists and turns with both the main and secondary characters contributing fully to advance the plot, making this story a delightful read while providing some exciting and charged moments. Mr. Mackle interlaces Joe's sexual escapades with the suspense and makes them pertinent to the story so that there are no awkward pauses and no real separation between the two. Joe is a memorable character. I laughed with him and at him, and I worried for him too. I did. I ended the story worried about where he's going next, but confident that Joe being Joe will come out smelling like roses. Will there be more Joe? I hope so. :)

Category: LGBT - Historical Mystery/Suspense
Series: Captain Harding
Publisher/Release Date: Lethe Press/May 17, 2012 - Kindle Ed.
Grade: A

Visit Elliott Mackle here.

Series:
Captain Harding Six Day War, #1
Captain Harding and His Men, #2

Minis: Strike Zone by Kate Angell, The Breach by Patrick Lee

Hey... July has been one hot month so far! I've been pretty much staying away from the blogosphere and twitter, trying to concentrate on family, friends and outdoor activities. Yes, I've 'checked out' a bit, although not altogether, but I've been reading.

Actually, I began rearranging the print books in my TBR in a new book shelf and now that they are "visible," they are looking readable again! I actually read (and finished) three books from my TBR pile earlier this month, the first one Open Season by Linda Howard, I reviewed for the TBR Challenge this month, here are the other two:

Strike Zone (Richmond Rogues #3) by Kate Angell has been in my TBR for a long time and I purchased it based on Nath's recommendation.

Strike Zone is a contemporary romance with baseball players (pitchers) as the male protagonists and baseball as the background, which I love. Two couples, Brek and Taylor and Sloan and Eve, find their happy ever after.

Brek and Taylor's is the main romance with a second chance at love trope. Taylor left Brek at the altar a few years back when her parents died in a tragic accident. She went on to live her life as a thrill seeker, and now that Brek is engaged to be married she comes back to apologize for her behavior, but of course there are unresolved feelings between the two. This storyline would have been great, except that Brek and Taylor didn't spend too much time together and although there is a happy ever after in the end, the reader never gets to experience how they really work out their differences. Everything just... kind of happens, and that includes the end of Brek's engagement.

Sloan is a young pitcher, and pretty much a superficial hunk with lots of groupies. He has his pick of women and enjoys choosing his one-night stands. He goes after Taylor first, but as he and Taylor's sister Eve get thrown together often, ends off liking her instead. Their romance is cute and I like the way Eve puts Sloan in his place, and Sloan makes Eve feel daring. But, frankly I wish their story had been longer or better developed.

Both romances in Striking Zone have likable characters, the baseball atmosphere is delightful, unfortunately although a cute, nice read, by making both romances central to the story neither is really developed enough to make this a memorable read. Grade C

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I also read The Breach by Patrick Lee, a book that was recommended to me by amazon (because of my browsing history). I purchased it and it has been in my TBR where I just let it linger...

The Breach is a suspense action/thriller with sci-fi flavor. I know those look like a lot of categories, but believe me, this book fits them all. Travis Chase is an ex-cop/ex-con trying to make some decisions about his life while hiking in Alaska. He finds a crashed airplane full of dead bodies and one strange note giving instructions to retrieve an artifact taken by the killers. Travis ends up saving  Paige Campbell's life and retrieving the artifact, but he's about to enter a world that will change the course of his life. A world that contains the Breach and "artifacts" that can change the world as we know it. Paige is tough. She's a combination scientist, super soldier with a spine of steel, with a few vulnerable spots that show at the most unexpected of times throughout the story.

Travis and Paige team up to save the world in this action packed story full of twists and turns, scientific as well as some science fiction details. The pacing is so quick that there's no putting the book down once you begin reading it, and the story feels shorter than it actually is (384 pages), as Travis and Paige run all over the world trying to figure out how to beat the villain of the piece, a super-intelligent, cold as ice villain. There's suspense, a mystery to unravel, cool gadgets, and gun fights with some horrific violent scenes included.

I think of The Breach as one of those fun action/thriller suspense reads (with some sci-fi flavor to spice things up) that are great to pick up in the summer because they're so full of action and such quick reads that it becomes tough to put them down. That's a big positive, but in reality this was not a great read for me. Why? It has a great beginning with a wonderful premise but there are holes in the storyline, the secondary characters are never more than two dimensional, and while I found Paige's characterization stereotypical, Travis left me cold. I questioned his decision-making abilities from the beginning and that's not a good thing. Example: why did he wait until Paige's father was dead before taking action? That was my first WTF moment -- I had a few more along the way.
Grade C+

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So far I've enjoyed contemporary romances by Kate Angell, but they have not been big winners for me. That doesn't mean that I won't read more. I like the atmosphere that she creates and the likable characters usually make her books enjoyable while I'm reading the books. If I want a quick contemporary romance fix, I'll keep Angell in mind. :)

And will I read the other two books in the Travis Chase trilogy by Patrick Lee? I already had the second book in my TBR (yes, I bought books 1 and 2), so I will be reading Ghost Country, and that means I will probably finish the trilogy. I hope the other two books are quick, action packed thrillers like the first one. :)