Michael Leptuch: 0400 Roswell Time

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I thoroughly enjoyed Kwajalein Stories about Tony Williams (we never knew his real name) a counter espionage operative after the end of WWII and praised Michael Leptuch's masterly first person commentary of Williams' life at that time via his memoirs as an old man. The brief book description told me little more than this book would be a sequel but the title told me nothing about the book (and still doesn't).

The first book gave a good factual background of the era and was most realistic. I expected more stories about William's espionage activities at the start of the Cold War but was surprised to find that most of this book was fantasy science fiction about "flying saucers" in the US and Russia. I don't believe in such fantasies and couldn't avoid marking down my rating because of the unbelievable subject matter.

In this book, while Leptuch used the first person he changed characters and it was frequently hard to work out who was telling the tale. There were no chapter headings for each character to help and sometimes the first person character even changed within a chapter.

Despite all of this I enjoyed Leptuch's writing and he is certainly a very good story teller. My main grouch is that the story wasn't complete as the main objective of the flying saucers was left till the next book. In the end I enjoyed the story and the writing, but the style problems and fantasy topics put me off. All in all I found this book extremely hard to give a fair rating.

Michael Leptuch: Kwajalein Stories

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From time to time I stumble upon an unexpectedly good book - and this is one of them. It is a page-turning thriller with a difference - an espionage type story told as a personal history of the start of the Cold War.

The book is written in the first person by an old man recollecting his experiences at and just after the end of WWII. We really never get to know his real name - he has been Kerrigan, Torvasen, Sorensen (at Los Alamos) and finally Lieutenant and later Captain Anthony Williams at A Bomb test sites in the Pacific with minor but important side trips to Russia. We follow him through his various adventures in national security and counter-espionage before the start of the CIA. In between projects he even finds time to become a wealthy businessman and marry and raise a family.

Michael Leptuch is a talented author who spells out the story with humanity and occasional humour against a detailed historical background of the era. I strongly recommend this book and will certainly be reading more of his works.