Free Download | Mitla Pass | Leon Uris

Here's a Leon Uris novel I could have done without. I picked it up on a recent vacation, thinking an historical novel would be a nice change of pace. Alas, Uris disappoints. The book opens with a mass market pot-boiler kind of intrigue, involving the protagonist, his wife and his Hungarian lover. The details and conflicts of these involvements drag on, uninteresting, cliched and over-written, for at least 80 pages. A few chapters, very few, focus on Israel's 1956 conflict with Egypt in the Sinai, and more specifically the Mitla Pass, the mountainous area of the Sinai just north of the Suez Canal. Then readers are treated to a bizarre family history of diverse characters who are only marginally connected, and have little or no bearing whatever on the supposed main topic of the story---that is, what happened in 1956. These lengthy middle chapters are redeemed somewhat by somewhat more sophisticated writing, three notches above pot-boiler status, but still far from a major literary achievement.

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Free Download | O'Hara's Choice | Leon Uris Novel

After the Civil War, stalwart warriors struggle to keep the Marine Corps alive. Their one hope may lie in Zachary O'Hara, the son of their hero, Paddy. But Zachary is haunted by a secret - one that may force him to choose between a career in the Corps or a life with a woman who fulfils his desires. You can't tell a book by its cover. The synopsis sounded good and the book started out in grand epic style by introducing a host of characters. The interest stopped there. The characters were undeveloped and the lapses in time were confusing. Dialogue was stilted and love scenes were sappy. There did not seem to be much craft used in developing the plot. It appeared that the author had done his historical research and then needed to share that learning through the dialogue of his characters. Writing in hindsight the author had material the characters would never have known. Nevertheless, the information was inelegantly expressed through the words of the speakers who sounded too prophetic and preachy to be real. I did learn something of the origins of the Marines but the price of the knowledge was too high. Don't bother.

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