Voices of the French Foreign Legion by Adrian Gilbert

This is a non-fiction book and details with first-hand experiences by those who have joined the legion. It is a reprint of an earlier edition.

The French Foreign Legion has always had a reputation based in movies of a slightly romantic quality. “I’m running away to join the Legion,” can be heard in many scripts. The reality is far from this, however. The Legion is in fact known for its acceptance of any volunteer, regardless of background, as long as they are able to survive the training – both physical and emotional akin to torture.

The author takes the excerpts and divides them into a logical sequence as well as adding his own information and opinion on events. The book begins with how the Legionnaire is made: from the decision to join, the volunteering and the hell that is basic training. The book is no holds barred, and some experiences described, should have turned half of the recruits crazy. The recruit’s experiences tell of life in the Legion and the camaraderie experienced by some and the hatred by others. This intense reliance on others, often in life-threatening situations, led to desertion, and some very scary scenarios come out explaining what led to deserters and how they were dealt with. A large section of the book also deals with the conflicts that the Legion was involved in; from Africa to Vietnam.  I found their ‘Never give up unless we die’ attitude absolutely amazing and the fact that a recruit would fight against their birth country as they are now in the French Legion and be happy about it was quite a revelation.

The last 14% of the book is dedicated to endnotes and a bibliography which was quite strange as the book seemed to end very suddenly if you had been keeping an eye on the percentage of pages left. A few editing mistakes crept in, but nothing to really put you off the flow of the book.

Since I had never read a book on the Foreign Legion before, all of this information was new to me so I enjoyed learning a great deal of new info. Apparently, the excerpts are from other published books, so if other readers have read these books a lot of the info might not be new.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. The author has taken facts and stories and presented them in such a way that it is like reading a work of fiction and you just have to keep on reading to see what will happen next.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thistle Publishing for the opportunity to review the book.  

Serial K Returns by Brian Gallagher

Serial K returns is the second in a series but can be read as a standalone novel.

Craig Breedlove is back and this time he has his sights set on those who have been abused by priests, as he was during his childhood. His Ripper days are behind him, but he still has the urge to end lives as he sees fit.  Agents O’ Callaghan and Lucci are back together again but are meant to be taking it easy in a semi-retirement. Lucci has the unfortunate luck of landing in a situation with the Mexican cartel and her actions launch a retaliation vendetta. Fortunately, her neighbours pack a lot of heat and are quite willing to help out. Breedlove’s plans collide with theirs when he forms a group of people willing to take matters into their own hands and deal out their own brand of justice to the priests. As the pair comes closer to finding Breedlove, he finds a way to change his plan and now has his sights set on Lucci. With both parties willing to go all the way, who will be the victor?

The story brings up an interesting moral dilemma where the reader feels empathy for the abused, and as the killings start are almost rooting for them to get away with it due to the fact that the priests feel no remorse. With the killings there is quite a bit of violence and descriptions of gore etc, but nothing too over the top. With the focus on the story of a serial killer and law enforcement that are out to get him, I found it quite strange that the author concentrated so much on what the characters ate and drank. The extra info on the arms and ammo as well as the boats was still in the understandable range, but the amounts of bottles of wine and their labels as what was eaten in restaurants were unnecessary. There were some editing mistakes, but nothing that detracted from the story.

I enjoyed the pace and writing of the story and found it very interesting being in the conflicted mind of this serial killer. The ending is quite interesting as a couple of things can be read into it and it’s up to the reader (or book 3) to decide how they believe it ended.

A quick but “enjoyable” read.