Max Blue's War Trilogy
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World War I - Times
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World War II - For Those in Peril on the Sea
- Korea - Cold Front Passing Hokkaido
The War Trilogy - which will become a tetralogy with the upcoming publication of The War Guilt Clause - was born almost by chance.
Sixty three years after the event, there are still men living who were on the deck of the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Just a few years ago, a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer told of seeing Dorie Miller, an African-American steward's mate, man a machine gun trying to fight off the attackers, and later make a valiant effort to save the life of his mortally wounded commaning officer. For Those In Peril On the Sea, the first-published volume of the War Trilogy, was inspired by the story of Dorie Miller. It began one snowy Christmas day in 1982 when I sat in front of my first computer, an Epson QX-10 that served me well, and began to write the story of a rescue at sea that happened on my ship, the USS John R. Craig DD885, during the Korean War. I called the story "Boats" and it later became the prologue for Peril. I was given permission to use an African-American protagonist by Oliver LaGrone - poet, sculptor, philosopher, friend - who became Count in the story.
The novel was published in March 2003 after endless revision. At one point, Peril was two books, but in the end was published as one book with two parts. Part one is about the Pacific island battles in WW II, part two is about the civil rights battles in Alabama in the early 1950s. I always knew the book would need another part to complete the saga, and with the upcoming publication of Count this fall, the tetralogy will become a pentalogy and the tale will be complete.
Times
ISBN 1-4137-0541-3 PublishAmerica - February 2004
Cover and inside art by noted graphic artist Herb Rogoff
This book was inspired by Barbara Tuchman's The Zimmerman Telegram, Leon Wolf's In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign, a lifetime fascination with World War I, the 1916 New York Giants' 26-game winning streak and the pennant race that went with it, and the life of Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States.
"If we do not know courage, we cannot accomplish our purpose, and this is an age that looks forward, not backward, which rejects the standard of national selfishness that once governed the counsels of nations, and demands that they shall give way to a new order of things in which the only questions will be, Is it right? Is it just? Is it in the interest of mankind?" - Woodrow Wilson
Follow the adventures of twins Ed and Ted Frederick, born in Brooklyn on January 1, 1900, as they grow up with the 20th Century. Along the way, they meet and fall in love with Mary Cady, a young English girl wounded by a shell burst within sight of America, and hob nob with the likes of Hugh Fullerton, baseball writer for the New York Times; Wickham Steed, foreign editor for the Times; Woodrow Wilson and his advisor, Colonel House; and Raul Lufbery, flying ace of the famed Lafayette Escadrille.
For Those in Peril on the Sea
ISBN 1-59286-419-8 PublishAmerica 434 pages - February 2003
A sprawling story of war, peace, love, hate, the meaning of family and what it means to be human. Set against the sweeping backdrop of World War II, the Korean War, and the birth of the Civil Rights Era. Partially inspired by the story of Navy Cross winner Dorie Miller, the life of sculptor/poet Oliver LaGrone, and the author's own experiences. Featuring indelible portraits of such memorable characters as protagonist Booker T. "Boats" McCann, a young African-American man who joins the Navy to avenge his brother's death; Count, the centenarian survivor of the Battle of Gettysburg, who takes Booker T. under his wing; Flapper Jackson, the shore party fire control officer of the cruiser Indianapolis, who also happens to be Booker T.'s former math teacher; Jerry "J-Four" Mulhane, a son of Dixie from Pisgah, Alabama, who comes home from war with a new view; and many, many more.
Cold Front Passing Hokkaido
ISBN: 978-193492072 Strategic Book Publishing - 336 pages - April 2009
In January 1955 the U.S. Congress enacted the Formosa Resolution establishing an American commitment to defend Formosa (now Taiwan), the last shelter for the Republic of China and its leader Chiang Kai-shek. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower promised to protect all territories in the West Pacific under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China against any threat. The lines were drawn and two million Chinese soldiers lined up to cross the Straits of Formosa and claim the island for the People's Republic. On the island of Okinawa, twenty-five US Air Force F-100D fighter/bombers sat poised for a retaliatory strike against mainland China. Their payload... twenty-five Hydrogen Bombs. Max Blue brings this lesser known threat of nuclear holocaust to light with an entertaining and enlightening work of historic fiction based on true events. Witness the years preceding this international showdown from both sides as east meets west and Lindsay Mae Sawyer, the pregnant wife of an Air Force officer and resident of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, finds her fate in this deadly conflict. She must convince Chinese Marshal Chu Teh that orders to attack Formosa will result in the deaths of millions of people along the Yellow River.
Max has two new novels scheduled for publication by Tate Publishers in 2013:
The War Guilt Clause continues the story begun in Times, set against the backdrop of the world-changing Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Scheduled for release on 10/18/2013 and available for pre-order now from Tate.