“When Night Comes” by Dan Walsh

Jack Turner is a gifted amateur historian who’s already making a name with his writings. He’s invited to give a series of lectures by an old professor at his alma mater, Culpepper University in northern Georgia. He jumped at the chance, primarily as a means of getting away from a failed relationship – a surprise rejection and ending by the woman he intended to propose to.

Jack begins his lectures, and he also begins to have strangely realistic dreams, as if he’s stepped into World War II military history. One dream involves being on Oahu during the bombing of Pearl Harbor; another is serving as the gunner on one of the planes that formed part of General Jimmy Doolittle’s surprise bombing raid on Tokyo. The dreams are both realistic and terrifying.

Gradually Jack begins to learn that his dreams may be connected to a student who died in his sleep, ostensibly from a congenital heart defect. And then another student commits suicide.

What Jack doesn’t know is that he’s being closely watched by a hit man, who’s also watching Jack’s old professor and Jack’s new romantic interest.

Dan Walsh

When Night Comes is the first in the Jack Turner suspense series by Dan Walsh. Walsh makes the military history dream sequences as vivid as the general narrative, and we feel Jack’s initial disorientation and then acceptance as much as the character does. I suspect the author is a World War II history buff.

Walsh is the author of several books in the Christian fiction and inspirational genre. The Jack Turner series includes Remembering Dresden and Unintended Consequences, the second and third in the series, respectively.(I read the second before I read the first, which I shouldn’t have done ,but it did help lessen the tension with the threat to one of the characters.)

When Night Comes, set in a small college town, has just the right combination of suspense, history, and romance to make an enjoyable read.

Related:

My review of What Follows After by Dan Walsh.

My review of Remembering Dresden by Dan Walsh.

Top photograph: The University of North Georgia-Dahlonega campus, similar to the college inWhen Night Comes.

“Remembering Dresden” by Dan Walsh

Jack Turner, a lecturer and close-to-becoming professor at Culpepper University, rents a cabin in the nearby nearby Georgia mountains to spend a month focused on his dissertation, as in (a) narrowing down the topic and (b) begin writing. The cabin hasn’t been lived in for some years; it has a wonderful view of a lake, but the rugs need a good dusting. It had been previously owned by an older man who died of a stroke. The man’s son is a rising politician and currently a state senator.

Turner notices a photograph album on the bookshelf. It’s filled with old pictures, likely taken sometime shortly after World War II. A young boy seems to be in most of them, but the inscriptions on the back of the photos are in German. Jack’s girlfriend Rachel is fluent in German, and she helps translate. They don’t explain much.

When Jack stubs his toe a second time on the same loose floorboard, he lifts it up, and discovers a plastic box. Inside are an album of newspaper clippings from the 1990s, all stories about servicemen in different parts of the United States who died in accidental fires or explosions. A quick read of the clippings shows that the men all had been part of the same air squadron and stationed at the same air base in England during World War II. And they had one other thing in common: they had participated in the firebombing of the German city of Dresden in February of 1945. With the clippings is an old leather journal, written in German. 

Jack and Rachel realize that they are looking at the work of a dead serial killer. And they discover his son, the state senator, knows about it. They will also soon learn that the son will do anything to stop them. Anything.

Remembering Dresden is the second in the Jack Turner mystery suspense novels by writer Dan Walsh. Walsh knows how to hook his readers. Several of the first chapters are the story of a family living in Dresden at the time of the firebombing and an eight-year-old boy who is the only survivor. It is gripping reading. 

Dan Walsh

Walsh is the author of several books in the Christian fiction and inspirational genre. The Jack Turner series includes When Night Comes and Unintended Consequences, the first and third in the series, respectively.

The firebombing of Dresden remains controversial among historians. The city had no heavy industry or military targets, and it had not previously been bombed. The Russians were approaching from the east. Estimates as to the number of people killed during the firebombings by British and American planes range up to 135,000. Britain could be said to have been avenging the saturation bombings of cities like Coventry by the Germans in 1942 and the use of V-2 rockets in 1944 and 1945. 

Remembering Dresden is a fast-paced, well-written, and well-plotted suspense novel. It also raises questions about what happens in war, and how actions taken for supposed military objectives can look very different in hindsight.

Related:

My review of What Follows Afterby Dan Walsh.

Top photograph: A view of Dresden after the firebombing of Feb. 13-15, 1945.

“What Follows After” by Dan Walsh

It’s October 1962. The Cuban missile crisis is breaking open, putting the world on razor-thin edge. In Florida, residents have been seeing lines of army trucks heading south toward Miami. An invasion appears imminent.

In Deland, Florida, two brothers, 11-year-old Colt and 6-year-old Timmy Harrison, are oblivious of the crisis. They’re dealing with a more personal crisis – the breakup of their parent’s marriage. Scott and Gina Harrison have been separated for 10 months, but they have been pretending otherwise. And instructing their sons to lie as well.

Colt and Timmy reach a crisis point, and run away from home. They hop a bus headed to Savannah, Georgia and a beloved aunt and uncle. Along the way, the bus stops for lunch. And Timmy disappears, taken by a man on another bus headed south.

What Follows After by Christian fiction Dan Walsh is the story of Colt and Timmy, their parents, and other family members during a time when much of the world was convinced that nuclear war was imminent. Published in 2014, it won the 2015 Selah Award for Best Historical Fiction and was a finalist for the 2015 ACFW Carol Award for Historical Fiction.

It’s an interesting story with an interesting premise, and uses one of the most dramatic backdrops of the second half of the 20^th century. That said, the book does have problems. The point of view shifts between the two brothers, the father, the mother, the African-American maid who works for the grandmother and helped raised the boy’s father, the man who kidnapped Timmy, and the two FBI agents handling the case. The book begins in contemporary times and then shifts back to 1962, and it’s not exactly clear why until the narrative is well underway. And the critical role played by the African-American maid is an unconvincing coincidence.

Dan Walsh

Walsh is the author of numerous Christian novels, including Unintended Consequences, When Night Comes, and Remembering Dresden, all in the Jack Turner suspense series; Finding Riley; Rescuing Finley; The Deepest Waters; The Reunion; The Homecoming; and many more. His works have won numerous Christian writing and book awards, as did What Follows After.

The premise is fascinating, and Walsh can tell a good story. The characterization is strong – the reader really cares about these characters. A little judicious editing would have helped immensely.

Top photograph: An October 1962 front-page headline of the New York Daily News.