Review: An excellent blend of fact with fiction--and in fact I was really there!!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 18, 2014
I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a fictionalized account of a historical event I thankfully lived through. It was a dratful experience serving in the USAF and stationed at a SAC base in Oklahoma that was a known target for those USSR missiles in Cuba. Yes, with the push of a button by a nut case on an island several hundred miles away everyone at Altus AFB would instantly become burnt toast—along with millions more.I was curious how the author could make those dreadful days in October of 1962 into an entertaining novel—especially since the event had been documented six ways from Sunday and back again. How could he weave a storyline around the real people in the White House??? At the highest level of government there was a division between those seeking a peaceful solution and the generals wanting a justification to nuke the hell out of those damn commies. The Strategic Air Command was on full alert with hundreds of B-52 bombers airborne and orbiting near their Fail Safe points.Keith did a marvelous job of depicting Washington DC in the early 1960s and provides an insightful look behind the closed doors of the White House in crisis mode. He captured the persona of the key players—including General LeMay giving a middle of the night briefing at the Pentagon to Nate Micheals, special advisor to the President. Nate had flown B-17 bombers in the 8th Air Force under the command of LeMay during WWII. Now twenty years later, Nate has been called into the tangled political fray by President Kennedy with the hopes of opening a back channel with a KGB agent to help resolve this deadly dilemma peacefully.The author does a smashing job of effectively blending fact with fiction to create a thrilling story. He creates a believable friendship between Nate and Jack while both where grad students at Stanford—the abrupt ending of their friendship just prior to the USA being thrust into WWII is equally believable. Nate reading the novel “Seven Days in May” while staying in a guest room at the White House is a rather interesting touch.Enjoy often… John