SURVIVORThrough six grueling years of warfare, USS Russell and her gallant crew pitted their prowess against a determined enemy.From the pre-Pearl Harbor Battle of the Atlantic to the campaigns in the Pacific, She was home to warriors who fought off attacks by submarines, planes and ships. She saw them through sixteen major engagements of World War Two including the Battles of Coral Sea, Java, Midway, Savo Island, Santa Cruz, and Guadalcanal She supported the land forces thro...

Allen boarded the elevator before he realized a hospital security guard was already aboard. He quickly faced the door as the elevator started up. Just before it reached the fifth floor, he heard the static of the guard's walkie-talkie. An unintelligible message crackled. The elevator slowly came to a stop. He leapt out of the half open door,raced to the ICU and glanced back.The guard had not gotten off the elevator. Allen breathed deeply. He was running scared, but from what? He had done n...

What has happened to the thousands of Bosnians, Croatians and Serbians swallowed up in the Balkan war of the 1990s, never to return to their homes? Matt O'Brien, ex-senator and former Vietnam POW is a member of an international commission whose duty it is to sift for clues. Outraged by the commission's inaction, O'Brien teams up with radar engineer Hank Wilson. Together, they embark on a high-tech probe of the Bosnian killing fields. As they delve into the core of devastation, they unearth...

Dead EndThey found Henry Gibson shot dead in his abandoned car on a dirt road. DEAD END.Then George Horner…and Noah Hamberger. Wait a minute…who's depleting the population of Northeastern Ohio? Are these random murders or a sicko with an agenda? DEAD END.That was the problem facing homicide detective Al Maharos. He ran out of ideas. DEAD END.Maharos had never worked with a woman partner until Karen Vandergrift. Attractive, brilliant Vandergrift. Together, they u...

My father, Jack Friedman, CPA (even if he made the diploma himself), and Purple Heart recipient (even if he lifted it from the guy in the bed next to him in a Tokyo Army hospital), moved to Las Vegas from Atlantic City when he was 78.This is that story. The early years — and by early, I mean his 80s.Voluptuous Bagels and Other Concerns of Jack Friedman is the first volume (there will be three) of my conversations, arguments, buffets, and philosophical musings with ...

My father, Jack Friedman, CPA (even if he made the diploma himself), and Purple Heart recipient (even if lifted it from the guy in the bed next to him in a Tokyo Army hospital), moved to Las Vegas from Atlantic City when he was 78.He bought a house at 84. The bank gave him a thirty-year mortgage.This is that story. The early years-and by early, I mean his 80s. I spent more time with him at this point in his life than any other.I am a comedian. I had time.

One couple. Two stories. One truth. Sort of.Jacob Fishman is miserable. His wife, Cindi, is miserable.His editor wants him to write another book.Suffocating in his own self-consciousness, Jacob decides to explore the frailties, fears, and deficiencies of his life with Cindi including, most tellingly, her desire to have a baby-and his desire not to. He creates Fishman doppelgängers, literary avatars, to see if their lives can be better than his. He w...

Henry and Harriet Callins, having discovered that all that glitters is not Golden Age, move into Restful Bowers, a community for seniors. It has all the amenities anyone would want, plus a Care Center and Assisted Living facility, their umbrella.Henry attends meetings, where problems are solved by planning more meetings. For Henry's fellow residents, the big event each day is waiting for the mailman. They enhance their wealth by scraping off the nickels and dimes that come in chari...

Barry Friedman, a veteran of 30 years on the comedy road, delivers another punchline on standup. Filled with garden-variety kleptomaniacs, large, rum-drinking Bahamians, bitter, glorious, troubled, and sex-addicted women with ankle monitors, loquacious drug addicts, first-time Vegas lesbians, and tall, neurotic Jews in sweaters— and these are the sane people—The Joke Was On Me is the story, his story, of laughs and love and almost fame. It's all true—as much as comedy will allow a...

One couple. Two stories. One truth. Sort of.Jacob Fishman is miserable. His wife, Cindi, is miserable.His editor wants him to write another book.Suffocating in his own self-consciousness, Jacob decides to explore the frailties, fears, and deficiencies of his life with Cindi including, most tellingly, her desire to have a baby—and his desire not to. He creates Fishman doppelgängers, literary avatars, to see if their lives can be better than his. He wills himself to t...

"They got some old timers here, you know, Ba? It's a Jewish place."So said Jack Friedman, my father, after moving into the Tulsa Jewish Retirement Center, later known as Zarrow Pointe—but to him it was "The Hebrew Home."We'll go with that.In Jack Sh*t 3: I'm the Father?—the third installment of a 4-part trilogy—we are reminded that the world is Jack Friedman's oyster . . . or more accurately, Jack Friedman's scrambled egg on a soft roll.It's always ...

In recent years, the justices of the Supreme Court have ruled definitively on such issues as abortion, school prayer, and military tribunals in the war on terror. They decided one of American history's most contested presidential elections. Yet for all their power, the justices never face election and hold their offices for life. This combination of influence and apparent unaccountability has led many to complain that there is something illegitimate—even undemocratic—about judicial authori...