Taking London: Martin Dugard

Martin Dugard is best known for the popular “Killing” book series – “Killing Kennedy,” “Killing Lincoln,” etc. – written with famed TV broadcaster Bill O’Reilly.

But he’s also the sole author of the “Taking” series – “Taking Paris,” “Taking Berlin” – books about World War II. Now, he’s penned a third one – “Taking London.”

The book is chronologically out of order. While many of the events of “Taking London” coincide with “Taking Paris,” “London” definitely takes place prior to the events in “Taking Berlin,” which chronicles the fall of Nazi Germany.

Many readers likely thought with “Berlin” portraying the end of the war in Europe, the book marked the end of the series. “Taking London” may reach back to the earliest years of the war but “Taking” fans will be glad to see that Dugard and his publishers figured out a way to paint themselves out of a corner.

Like the first two books and like the “Killing” books, “Taking London: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization” is a history book written in a style similar to a thriller novel. Here, readers spend many pages with Winston Churchill as he returns from his political “Wilderness” years to rise to prime minister of Great Britain to face the threat of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Europe has been taken. Churchill and England stand alone against the Third Reich.

But this book isn’t about Churchill alone. Dugard introduces several of the pilots who flew missions during the aerial Battle of Britain – the “few” of the famous Churchill quote: Never “was so much, owed by so many, to so few.” The book delves into the backgrounds of the pilots’ lives, training, missions and sacrifices.

“Taking London” is an immensely readable book – well paced and well researched. Some readers may wish for more. It may take Dugard moving to another continent of the conflict for his World War II “Taking” series to expand past a trilogy.

The Sentinel: Lee Child & Andrew Child

“The Sentinel” is the first book in the Jack Reacher series where author Lee Child tags his brother, Andrew Reacher, into the co-writer spot of the series.

Readers and fans can decide for themselves if this is a good addition or not.

Reacher still travels the United States with nothing more than the clothes on his back, his expired passport, some cash and his portable toothbrush. He’s still physically massive, indomitable and cannot help but respond to situations while living by his own moral code.

Unlike other books, the co-written Reacher has a stated love for blues music – as he also does in the Amazon Prime television show. There is also more action here – also similar to the show version – but it comes at the expense of Reacher’s interior life which seems richer in the sole Lee Child books. And the supporting characters are thinner here; they are forgettable cardboard cutouts rather than developed characters.

In “The Sentinel,” Reacher saves a man who is unwittingly walking into an ambush. The man is a former city IT manager accused of bungling a Tennessee town’s data, records and computer systems to a point of no return. Everyone in the city seems to hate the IT guy, including the actual people who launched the cyber attack.

Reacher digs deep and triumphs, as expected.

The Childs keep the formula the same as the earlier books but long-time fans will notice the recipe has changed a little bit. Like a meatloaf is still a meatloaf, Reacher is still Reacher – it just tastes a little bit different. Each reader will have to decide if that’s for better or worse.