Kirjahaku

The Last Eucharist has as its beginning an image of a man, both legs amputated just below the knee, doing a headstand on the sidewalk outside of a cinema.Looking at the world through satirical eyes, this book shines a bright light on human foibles. And author Ian T. King's sarcastic humor makes unusual sense out of a chaotic world in the same vein as satirists such as George Saunders and Joseph Heller.Navigating the line between illusion and reality, the plot flows from the scene at the Palais de Th tre in Jackrabbit, Arizona, toward a chance meeting between Thomas, the weathered old cripple, and a pretty twenty-something named Sally Graham. It continues moving forward, heading to Saigon, Vietnam, where serendipity again works its magic, drawing in a street urchin named Tomaso, another boy named Bao, and Thomas's childhood friend Billy Smith. From the waywardness and confusion of the plot line, a strange logic emerges.Ultimately, The Last Eucharist is a story about the enigmatic nature of human existence-a philosophical statement about the human condition. It's a unique statement, expressed through a wonderfully original work.

Julia Medrano is a tenacious young Latin American woman who is committed to championing the oppressed. She sets out to act on her principles. She ends up "disappeared." In the Dirty Wars of Latin America, Julia is yet another casualty of craven politics that exact incalculable suffering among its countrymen. Can her mother trace the fate of a beloved only daughter?Leaves in the Wind: A Novel of the Dirty Wars is Ian T. King's harrowing work of fiction that paints a painful portrait of Latin America during its political upheaval from the 1970s through the 1990s. When Julia emerges from an impoverished childhood and traumatic past to join the ranks of left-wing guerilla activists, she lands on the perilously wrong side of a punishing government's torture facility, which is run by a psychotic military officer.As her mother Helena and former paramour Angelo piece together Julia's sudden disappearance, this gripping tale lifts the shroud on one of the most chaotic and chilling eras in the twentieth century. At the same time, Leaves in the Wind offers crucial insight to a dirty wartime tactic that remains all too common throughout the world today.

A rollicking naval yarn set in the early 1970s. Part a latter-day "Odyssey" and part a latter-day "Billy Budd," "Jacob's Ladder" tells the tragic story of a young English sailor's first week on his first deployment at sea. Not only is Billy Smith tortured by a vindictive petty officer, but he also inadvertently gets enmeshed in a viper's nest of intrigue both on board his ship as well ashore in the den of iniquity that lures him to Singapore's infamous Bugis Street. Billy struggles to stay on a true course through all his trials and tribulations, but it isn't easy--not by a long shot.