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Publisher:
iUniverse |
Release
Date: 1 June 2002 |
ISBN:
0595236006 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Paperback |
Buy
it at Amazon US
|| UK |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Historical Military [Thailand & Cambodia 1974-75] |
Reviewed:
2003 |
Reviewer:
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewer
Notes: |
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Tales
of the Yellow Silk
By Derek
Hart
Naïve
young Sergeant James Kendle thinks he is lucky to be sent to the
exotic location of Thailand; beautiful willing young girls, sunshine
and all the glamour of the mysterious Far East. To make things even
better, he is in command of a small team called Delta and hits it
off well with his new squad. During his brief tour of duty, the
predictions of a fortuneteller will all come true – he will
fall in love and have many adventures, but a lot more will happen
and not all of it will be pleasant.
Derek Hart has an enviably easy style,
packing in a lot of adventure, military action, romance and local
color in remarkably few pages. The book is essentially a series
of short stories that focus on various aspects of Kendle’s
tour of duty, including forays into enemy territory, life at “The
Dirty Pit,” Bangkok’s fleshly delights and a certain
romantic interlude. Nevertheless, they read as chapters of one continuous
story. By turns comic, exciting or tragic, they seem to run the
gamut of wartime emotions and make deceptively light reading while
lingering in the mind long afterwards. No mean feat for such a short
novel; perhaps writers of overlong doorstops ought to take a leaf
out of Hart’s laconic book. I’d recommend this one to
anybody who enjoys a good tale well seasoned with action and romance.
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