In this memoir, Dahler tells of finding wholeness in a career that took him from glitzy Hollywood parties to the depths of Iraqi war zones.

The author has done a lot in his 30-year career as an author, journalist, and network TV news correspondent for ABC, CBS, CNBC, and Fox News, including chasing a porcupine through the Namibian desert while working on a nature film and driving through Iraq with Kurdish guerrilla fighters. In his personal life, he almost sold an apartment to Leonardo DiCaprio. This memoir takes readers from his difficult childhood as a “military brat,” punctuated by confrontations with schoolyard bullies and an abusive father, through his development as a reporter. It culminates with a didactic list of takeaways from his life and career. The book’s snappy, short vignettes have eyebrow-raising titles such as “Shaq and the Black Mamba” (about an interview with basketball star Kobe Bryant) and “That Time I Almost Had To Kill A Guy,” about an episode in wartime Iraq. Dahler’s disbelief at his success, his luck, and the wild situations in which he found himself runs through many of these episodes; he introduces himself by explaining, “The fact that I was among those very few elevated to those [network correspondent] positions, for as long as I was able to hang on, is absolutely ridiculous.” Later stories, though, sometimes indulge in name-dropping, as in an account of when Ellen DeGeneres “asked if I’d be willing to donate my sperm so that she and Anne [Heche] could have a baby.” Frequent typographical errors are also distracting. Still, his skill at injecting humor into grave situations makes his memoir worthwhile. The author’s work is at its most graceful when recalling his times in Afghanistan and Iraq with their accurate explanations of historical context, detailed recollections of high-stakes conversations with U.S. military officials, and sympathetic accounts of civilians. Bits of useful advice for aspiring correspondents also bookend his stories.  

A fast-paced, lighthearted reflection on an unpredictable life.

This biography charts the life of a pioneer American aviator.

Born in rural Michigan in 1875, Harriet Quimby enjoyed a life punctuated by firsts. She was among the first women to become a licensed driver, the first woman to secure a pilot’s license in America, and the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel. Dahler’s book records Quimby’s journey from being a “little girl from a Michigan dirt farm” to becoming an accomplished journalist, screenplay writer, and renowned aviator. The author describes the Quimby family’s move to San Francisco via Arroyo Grande, where the young girl developed a taste for writing. She began producing reviews for, among other publications, the San Francisco Dramatic Review, a role that would later see her relocate to Manhattan, where she would work as a theater critic. Dahler also focuses on Quimby’s love for speed, which began as a child, exploring the fields surrounding her family home at “full gallop.” The author draws on a range of secondary sources, including newspaper articles and newsreel stills—alongside Quimby’s personal recollections—to illustrate her landmark achievement of crossing the English Channel. Dahler calls this feat “almost as audacious and perilous as a trip to the moon would be fifty-seven years later.” The author also describes in chilling detail the events surrounding Quimby’s death at the age of 37 after falling from an airplane.

Dahler’s writing is characterized by its effervescent eagerness to tell Quimby’s story. This urgency makes for a fast-paced, compelling narrative: “Harriet Quimby was about to take a literal, and literary, leap into the void. If she survived, and there was certainly no guarantee of that, her leap was to be a first for women.” The author adds further drama by using intense, poetic descriptions: “Wraiths of heavy salt air floated across the White Cliffs of Dover, bestowing their wet caresses on everyone and everything that waited day after day for a break in the fog and lashing rain.” Some readers may consider this aspect of Dahler’s approach slightly overwrought on occasion: “Their petrichor marked a subtle change of fortune.” Yet despite mild bouts of wordiness, the author succeeds in evoking a haunting atmosphere that lends extra texture to the biography. Dahler is also expert in providing intricate social and historical background to Quimby’s life story. In one passage, the author brings the streets of 1900s San Francisco—which Quimby would have walked—to life: “Streetlights bore ornate globed tops. Pedestrians in long dresses and top hats strolled along broad sidewalks.” This keen eye for detail makes for a vivid, multifaceted book. On discovering Quimby, Dahler remarks, “it was stunning to me that someone who accomplished so much was virtually lost to history because of a cruel and horrific twist of fate.” The author’s passion to celebrate and commemorate Quimby’s accomplishments is palpable throughout, making this an engrossing, enlightening, and thoroughly enjoyable biography.

Informed, eloquent writing; this meticulous account is a must for aviation historians and enthusiasts alike.

A random recent photo of a man presumed dead following the 9/11 attack spurs an investigative team to try to determine the truth about his disappearance—by any means possible.

Kyle Royce lives a double life in the manner of Bruce Wayne. He is the frontman for his family’s fabulously successful currency trading firm and nonprofit Royce Foundation. But his actual work is “cloak and dagger stuff,” tackling missing person cases “no one else can solve.” One such endeavor—which kicks off the novel in high gear—is rescuing a man’s son who had been kidnapped by a powerful Brazilian family. Royce and his team’s newest case, Phillip Peterson, formerly worked in fraud and security for a credit card company with offices in the World Trade Center. Was he killed in the terrorist attack, or is something more sinister afoot? Royce reassures Peterson’s sister that he and his “devoted staff with some unique skills and connections” will get results. “Our methods are sometimes unorthodox and, at times, controversial,” he admits. Or, in the words of Shakespeare, “To do a great right, do a little wrong.” But the hunters become the prey as their investigation uncovers the credit card company’s questionable doings. “There are some very powerful people and institutions that will not want the world to know this information,” Royce is warned at one point. Meanwhile, the Brazilians are stepping up pressure to retrieve the boy that Royce reunited with his father. But Royce has a simple lesson: “If you fuck with me, you will lose.” That kind of bravado makes the hero an enjoyable figure to follow around the world. He deserves future adventures that will hopefully further flesh out his colleagues. Only two, his best friend and former NFL player, Cleat Williams, and Jennifer Parks-Hudson, an investigator with whom Royce may have more than a professional interest, get major page time. Dahler (Water Hazard, 2010, etc.) lays on Royce’s badass attitude a little thick (“I can be a real grade-A asshole when I want to be. It’s a gift”) and character banter is strained, but the author keeps the plot moving with plenty of action.

A fun diversion with a bracing hero and sequel potential.

Golf fans and mystery mavens will rejoice at Dahler’s second appearance on the tour.

PGA golfer, lawyer and private eye Huck Doyle (A Tight Lie, 2009) has a sponsor’s exemption to the Sony Open that could jump-start his career. When his law-school friend Rick Wong’s father, the man who got Huck the exemption, is shot dead on the 17th tee of the Waialae Country Club, Huck is sucked into danger. Certain that an upcoming secret bank merger is the reason for his father’s death, Rick begs Huck to investigate. Because he’d promised his father that he’d never pry into his private life, he hands over his father’s computer to Huck. Suddenly Huck is harried by some mysterious tough guys whose behavior escalates from annoying to violent. Huck’s paraplegic brother, a former FBI agent, helps him crack encrypted computer files that unmask Mr. Wong as a pedophile who’d been making money from a disgusting business and implicate both his partner, a former Chinese general, and agents of the Chinese government as suspects in his death. Huck, who’s found his golf game, is trying to keep up the good work after winning the Pro-Am. Making the cut and emerging as the 36-hole leader, he merely has to stay alive long enough to solve the puzzle and try to win the tournament.

A hole in one full of can’t-put-it-down adventure, stroke-by-stroke descriptions of the play and a clever solution.

A golf pro’s adventures off the course put his life at risk.

Huck Doyle, a middling PGA golfer, also has a law degree and a p.i. license. When his acquaintance, Joniel Baker, is accused of murder, Huck reluctantly agrees to help. The superstar baseball player is placed under arrest for the rape and murder of a girlfriend he’d grown bored with. The forensic evidence surrounding the murder of a second girl leaves Joniel looking even more guilty and Huck about to bail. This second victim worked at a strip club with Huck’s high-school flame, a born-again straight arrow who Huck is sure would never do the drugs he finds in her apartment. Not until his old flame disappears and he’s threatened by thugs does Huck start to buy Joniel’s story that he’s been framed. Both Huck’s father Pete, a disgraced L.A. cop, and Huck’s older brother, a paraplegic ex-FBI agent, have a lot of connections. That’s nice for Huck, who’ll need all the help he can get when he finds out an East Coast Mafia family may be behind the murders. Torn between his father’s success-at-any-cost mentality and his brother’s high ethical standards, Huck has a difficult time coming up with a solution that will get him back to Pebble Beach alive.

A promising debut whose hero, tough and literate as Spenser and cool as Freddie Couples, will appeal to golfers and hard-boiled fans alike.