Task Force Baum

Inspired by true events during WWII that General George S. Patton later described as "the only mistake I made during the war," bestselling author James D. Shipman delivers a powerful, action-packed novel that illustrates the long-buried secrets and unending costs of war. Based on the true story of General Patton's clandestine unauthorized raid on a World War II POW camp.\nMarch, 1945. Allied forces are battle-worn but wearily optimistic. Russia's Red Army is advancing hard on Germany from the east, bolstering Allied troops moving in from the west and north. Soon, surely, Axis forces must accept defeat. Yet for Captain Jim Curtis, each day is a reminder of how unpredictable and uncertain warfare can be.\nCaptured during the Battle of the Bulge after the Germans launched a devastating surprise attack, Curtis is imprisoned at a POW camp in Hammelburg, Bavaria. Conditions are grim. Inmates and guards alike are freezing and starving, with rations dwindling day by day. But whispers say General Patton's troops are on the way, and the camp may soon be liberated.\nIndeed, fifty miles away, a task force of three hundred men is preparing to cross into Germany. With camps up and down the line, what makes Hammelburg so special they don't know, but orders are orders. Yet their hopes of evading the enemy quickly evaporate. Wracked by poor judgment, insufficient arms, and bad luck, the raid unravels with shattering losses. The liberation inmates hoped for becomes a struggle for survival marked by a stark choice: stay, or risk escaping into danger--while leaving some behind.\nFor Curtis, the decision is an even more personal test of loyalty, friendship, and the values for which one will die or kill. It will be another twenty years before the unsanctioned mission's secret motivation becomes public knowledge, creating a controversy that will forever color Patton's legacy and linger on in the lives of those who made it home at last--and the loved ones of those who did not.

Literature & Fiction

Shipman, James D.

United States

Pinnacle

A former professor descends into darkness in this provocative story of a Nazi soldier torn between duty and conscience.
East Prussia, Nazi Germany, 1939. History professor Erik Mueller is a model citizen and a family man. He’s also a decorated sergeant in the Gestapo. Proving his courage on the battlefields of Poland and the Soviet Union, and proud of the German army’s victories across Europe, he embraces what he thinks is the righteousness of the Third Reich’s cause.
But his loyalties are soon tested when he crosses paths with his old university friend Trude Bensheim. Forced into unemployment for being Jewish, Trude and her husband start a secret organization to help Jews escape Germany. But when they are betrayed by someone they thought they could trust, their lives hang in the balance.
Erik feels responsible for Trude’s capture, and he knows he’s in a position to help them. But when everything he holds dear is at stake, will he save his friends…or himself?

A Bitter Rain

Lake Union Publishing

For over a thousand years, the medieval city of Constantinople has been the jewel on the crown of the Roman Empire. Now, the once-mighty metropolis is broken down, with its defensive walls in shambles. Long have the neighboring Turks wanted to claim the city, and Mehmet—the impetuous new Turkish sultan—thinks he and his legions might finally have their chance. In defiance of his late father’s advisors, Mehmet vows to be the first leader in a millennium to wrench Constantinople from the Christians. He is determined to take the city from the weakened but beloved Emperor Constantine—even if he loses his throne and his life in the process.
An epic historical military adventure, Constantinopolis plots out the future of civilization as shaped by a number of fascinating characters, including one leader desperate to save his people from destruction and another determined to lead his nation to glory.
Revised edition: This edition of Constantinopolis includes editorial revisions.

Constantinopolis

Genre Fiction

Going Home: A Novel of the Civil War

Brought to the New World from Ireland, young Joseph Forsyth is soon betrayed by his alcoholic father and separated from his beloved family. As he grows older, he finds his kind nature exploited by others―including an alluring young woman named Lucy―until he gets swept away by the conflict that divides a nation.After the bloody siege of Petersburg, Joseph floats in and out of consciousness at a Union army hospital. Keeping vigil at his side is Rebecca Walker, a nurse and widow all too familiar with the horrors of war. As Joseph fights for his life and Rebecca struggles to follow her heart, both face a devastating choice: whether to hang on to the wounds of the past or move on to an uncertain future.From the fields of Ireland to the metropolis of Quebec to the battlefields of Virginia, Going Home follows one man’s quest for his place in a world still healing from the wreckage of war.

BRILLIANCE AUDIO ^

In the tradition of Saving Private Ryan and Bridge Over the River Kwai, bestselling author James D. Shipman delivers a powerful, action-packed novel that illustrates the long-buried secrets and unending costs of war—based on the true story of General Patton’s clandestine unauthorized raid on a World War II POW camp. March, 1945. Allied forces are battle-worn but wearily optimistic. Russia’s Red Army is advancing hard on Germany from the east, bolstering Allied troops moving in from the west and north. Soon, surely, Axis forces must accept defeat. Yet for Captain Jim Curtis, each day is a reminder of how unpredictable and uncertain warfare can be. Captured during the Battle of the Bulge after the Germans launched a devastating surprise attack, Curtis is imprisoned at a POW camp in Hammelburg, Bavaria. Conditions are grim. Inmates and guards alike are freezing and starving, with rations dwindling day by day. But whispers say General Patton’s troops are on the way, and the camp may soon be liberated. Indeed, fifty miles away, a task force of three hundred men is preparing to cross into Germany. With camps up and down the line, what makes Hammelburg so special they don’t know, but orders are orders. Yet their hopes of evading the enemy quickly evaporate. Wracked by poor judgment, insufficient arms, and bad luck, the raid unravels with shattering losses. The liberation inmates hoped for becomes a struggle for survival marked by a stark choice: stay, or risk escaping into danger—while leaving some behind. For Curtis, the decision is an even more personal test of loyalty, friendship, and the values for which one will die or kill. It will be another twenty years before the unsanctioned mission’s secret motivation becomes public knowledge, creating a controversy that will forever color Patton’s legacy and linger on in the lives of those who made it home at last—and the loved ones of those who did not.

Kensington

Based on the gripping true story of an unlikely Polish resistance fighter who helped save thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, bestselling author James D. Shipman's Irena's War is a heart-pounding novel of courage in action, helmed by an extraordinary and unforgettable protagonist. September 1939- The conquering Nazis swarm through Warsaw as social worker Irena Sendler watches in dread from her apartment window. Already, the city's poor go hungry. Irena wonders how she will continue to deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, including the forbidden Jews. The answer comes unexpectedly. Dragged from her home in the night, Irena is brought before a Gestapo agent, Klaus Rein, who offers her a position running the city's soup kitchens, all to maintain the illusion of order. Though loath to be working under the Germans, Irena learns there are ways to defy her new employer--including forging documents so that Jewish families receive food intended for Aryans. As Irena grows bolder, her interactions with Klaus become more fraught and perilous. Klaus is unable to prove his suspicions against Irena--yet. But once Warsaw's half-million Jews are confined to the ghetto, awaiting slow starvation or the death camps, Irena realizes that providing food is no longer enough. Recruited by the underground Polish resistance organization Zegota, she carries out an audacious scheme to rescue Jewish children. One by one, they are smuggled out in baskets and garbage carts, or led through dank sewers to safety--every success raising Klaus's ire. Determined to quell the uprising, he draws Irena into a cat-and-mouse game that will test her in every way--and where the slightest misstep could mean not just her own death, but the slaughter of those innocents she is so desperate to save.

Irena's War

The bestselling author of Irena's War blends fact and fiction in a gripping novel based on one of the most extraordinary true stories of World War II-an uprising behind the walls of Auschwitz concentration camp. October 1944- In the long, narrow undressing rooms in Auschwitz-Birkenau, prisoner Jakub Bak toils under the scrutiny of SS guards. Like other members of the Sonderkommando, Jakub was selected on arrival for an unthinkable job- sorting through the clothes of the dead and moving their bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoriums. In this hell within a hell, Jakub clings to the promise he made to his murdered father-to live, at any cost-and to the moments he is able to spend in the company of Anna, imprisoned in the women's camp. Every morning, Anna marches miles to the union munitions factory where she works alongside other prisoners. Even Jakub doesn't know that she and a few other women have been taking the ultimate risk, smuggling trace amounts of gunpowder back in their clothing. A bold plan is brewing to revolt against the SS and liberate the camp. Jakub, pressured to join the resistance, knows that any uprising faces impossible odds. Added to this already stark choice is another desperate reality-the risk from informers who see their only chance of survival in betraying their fellow Jews. Powerfully moving and unflinching in its authenticity, Beyond the Wire tells of the women and men who, though outnumbered and outgunned, fought to free themselves, sparking a brilliant flash of light and hope amidst the darkest evil that humans can conceive.

Beyond the Wire

Inspired by the real-life husband and wife Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, this thrilling, high-stakes Cold War novel from the bestselling author of Irena's War follows one couple's relentless pursuit of a fugitive Nazi scientist in the aftermath of WWII. A must-read for fans of Kate Quinn, Joseph Kanon, Alan Furst, Lara Prescott, and Anika Scott. Berlin, 1948: World War II may be over, but a new era of conflict has begun. The Russians have cut off all access to the western part of Berlin in an attempt to seize it from the Allies. The thirst for power, dominance, and revenge is as strong as ever, and anti-Semitism is still rampant. When a store in West Berlin is vandalized with swastikas, Sara Sturm, a German woman working for the US Department of Public Affairs, is dispatched to investigate, and meets Max and Karl Portnoy, two Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Sharing their stories of loss, Sara and Max form a bond. Max and his family were sent to a concentration camp during the war, where his parents and sister perished. The man who betrayed them, Nazi nuclear scientist Heinz Hoffman, is now a wanted criminal. Since Max and his brother are among the very few who can identify him, Sara agrees to accompany them to Hoffman's last known whereabouts, hoping they will finally be able to bring him to justice. But tracking the elusive Hoffman is not just difficult, it's perilous. From the mountainous backroads of Bavaria to the Soviet border, Sara and Max race to evade assassins sent by the top-secret Odessa organization. And then there are other adversaries, hidden but no less lethal, determined to gain control of Hoffman and the knowledge he possesses--knowledge that may determine the course of countless wars to come. "Set in 1948 against the backdrop of the Berlin Blockade, this fast-moving Cold War thriller brings to life the shifting alliances that splintered the Allies in the years immediately following WWII. As readers attempt to sort out motives, the plot twists keep coming." -Booklist

Before the Storm: A Thrilling Historical Novel of Real Life Nazi Hunters

In a gripping tale of sisterhood, survival, and resistance for readers of Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff, a young woman in Nazi-occupied Holland joins a unique taskforce within the Dutch Resistance, wielding her youthful innocence and beauty to lure Nazis to their death. May 1940: In the months since the war in Europe began, nineteen-year-old Aafke Cruyssen and her family have tried to carry on as normal--running their modest grocery store in Eindhoven, hoping that Germany will leave Holland alone as it did during the Great War. But this time, Holland will not be spared. The invasion comes, swift and merciless, and Dutch forces are easily overpowered. In Eindhoven, a valuable transport and trade hub, Nazi soldiers swagger through the streets. Aafke's one glimpse of humanity comes from a young German corporal who intervenes when a gang of looters tries to rob her family's shop. Aafke joins the Dutch resistance and is drawn into a relationship with its charismatic leader. Wanting more than the menial missions assigned to women, she and her friends create a taskforce of their own--a "dating club" where women target Nazis, luring them to their arrest or death. Discovery by the Gestapo will mean torture and execution. Just as dangerous is the reappearance of the soldier who once helped her family. Otto Berg is now an influential Nazi commando, intrigued by Aafke's fragile courage. As the conflict deepens, so does Aafke's quandary. The tides of war continue to bring her and Otto into each other's circles. And beyond the battles that make history are countless sacrifices and unthinkable choices she must make for the sake of the resistance, and to save her own life and those she loves.

A Time for Defiance

Brought to the New World from Ireland, young Joseph Forsyth is soon betrayed by his alcoholic father and separated from his beloved family. As he grows older, he finds his kind nature exploited by others—including an alluring young woman named Lucy—until he gets swept away by the conflict that divides a nation.After the bloody siege of Petersburg, Joseph floats in and out of consciousness at a Union army hospital. Keeping vigil at his side is Rebecca Walker, a nurse and widow all too familiar with the horrors of war. As Joseph fights for his life and Rebecca struggles to follow her heart, both face a devastating choice: whether to hang on to the wounds of the past or move on to an uncertain future.From the fields of Ireland to the metropolis of Quebec to the battlefields of Virginia, Going Home follows one man’s quest for his place in a world still healing from the wreckage of war.

Brilliance Audio Lib Edn

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Books by Shipman, James D.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shipman, James D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Task Force Baum

A Bitter Rain

Constantinopolis

Going Home: A Novel of the Civil War

Task Force Baum

Irena's War

Beyond the Wire

Before the Storm: A Thrilling Historical Novel of Real Life Nazi Hunters

A Time for Defiance

Going Home: A Novel of the Civil War