One of the great arguments of World War II took place among Allied military leaders over when and where to launch a second front against Germany in Europe. Stalin, holding on by his teeth in Russia, urged a major invasion from the west as soon as possible. The Americans, led by Marshall and Wedemeyer, argued likewise. It was Churchill who got his way, however, with his Mediterranean strategy, including a campaign on the Italian peninsula, which he mistakenly called the “soft underbelly of Europe.”This realistic, fact-based work posits what would have happened had Churchill been overruled, and that rather than invading North Africa in the fall of 1942, thence Sicily and Italy, the Allies had hit the coast of southern France instead. The key element that enables the alternative scenario is the co-operation of Vichy, which was negotiated at the time but refused. If the Allies had promised sufficient force to support the French, however, the entire southern coastline of France would have been undefended against a surprise invasion.In this book, once the Allied armies are ashore, German stream toward the front, albeit through a gauntlet of Maquis, Allied paratroopers and airpower. Meantime the Allied forces push up the Rhône Valley and titanic armoured clashes take place near Lyons. Already in desperate straits at Stalingrad, where they had committed their air and armoured reserves, the Germans had also yet to switch to a full total-war economy, with tanks like the Panther and Tiger not yet deployed.This fascinating alternative history comes close to informing us exactly what might have happened had D-Day in Europe come as early as some had wished.About the AuthorAlexander M. Grace is the author of a number of well-received novels including Holy War, Hegemon, Coup and Sky Blue. When not writing he is a professor and former Foreign Service officer.

The Organised Criminal by Jarlath Gregory is about blood, family and organized crime. Jay O’Reilly, reluctantly returning for home for his cousin’s funeral, is offered a job by his father. His family's criminal activity had made Jay determined never to return. His father is a well-known smuggler with a far-reaching nefarious empire. Though Jay likes to think he’s turned his back on his community, his lost-past still fascinate him. The job is deceptively simple, worryingly so, but lucrative. Despite himself, Jay is tempted, tempted by the money, tempted by the possibility of escape and a chance to make things right. Gregory’s wry wit questions the ethics, conscience and loyalty of Jay, his family and his friends. Spiked with black humor throughout, Jay’s feelings of loneliness, displacement, dissatisfaction and even hatred elevate this thrilling celtic noir novel and show that a job is never just a job. It becomes a story of fear, family-ties, male friendship and power. As Jay contemplates the job, he reacquaints himself with the place and the family he left, only to find that it is exactly as hard, cold and unwelcoming as he remembered. When the truth behind his father’s offer is finally revealed, Jay faces a primal struggle between familial bonds and moral obligations.

Recent global security threats, economic instability, and political uncertainty have placed great scrutiny on the requirements for U.S. citizenship. The stipulation of literacy has long been one of these criteria. In Producing Good Citizens, Amy J. Wan examines the historic roots of this phenomenon, looking specifically to the period just before World War I, up until the Great Depression. During this time, the United States witnessed a similar anxiety over the influx of immigrants, economic uncertainty, and global political tensions.Early on, educators bore the brunt of literacy training, while also being charged with producing the right kind of citizens by imparting civic responsibility and a moral code for the workplace and society. Literacy quickly became the credential to gain legal, economic, and cultural status. In her study, Wan defines three distinct pedagogical spaces for literacy training during the 1910s and 1920s: Americanization and citizenship programs sponsored by the federal government, union-sponsored programs, and first year university writing programs. Wan also demonstrates how each literacy program had its own motivation: the federal government desired productive citizens, unions needed educated members to fight for labor reform, and university educators looked to aid social mobility.Citing numerous literacy theorists, Wan analyzes the correlation of reading and writing skills to larger currents within American society. She shows how early literacy training coincided with the demand for laborers during the rise of mass manufacturing, while also providing an avenue to economic opportunity for immigrants. This fostered a rhetorical link between citizenship, productivity, and patriotism. Wan supplements her analysis with an examination of citizen training books, labor newspapers, factory manuals, policy documents, public deliberations on citizenship and literacy, and other materials from the period to reveal the goal and rationale behind each program.Wan relates the enduring bond of literacy and citizenship to current times, by demonstrating the use of literacy to mitigate economic inequality, and its lasting value to a productivity-based society. Today, as in the past, educators continue to serve as an integral part of the literacy training and citizen-making process.

In this nuanced and moving new collection of poems, Brenda Coultas weaves a meditation on contemporary life and our place in it. Coultas, who is known for her investigative documentary approach, turns her attention to landfills and the odd histories embedded in the materials found there. The poems make their home among urban and rural detritus, waste, trinkets, and found objects. The title poem, for example, takes its cue from the random, often perfect, pigeon feathers found on city streets. In a seamless weave of poetic sentences, The Tatters explores how our human processes of examination are often bound up with destruction. These poems enable us to be present with the sorrow and horror of our destructive nature, and to honor the natural world while acknowledging that this world no longer exists in any pure form, calling to us instead from cracks in the sidewalk, trash heaps, and old objects. Check for the online reader's companion at tatters.site.wesleyan.edu.

This issue of Cirpit Review gathers together several contributions on the theme of interculturalism, written by Italian and international scholars specialised in intercultural philosophy and inter-religious dialogue. Among them are Giacomo Marramao, Giangiorgio Pasqualotto, Franz Martin Wimmer, Joseph Prabhu, Piergiorgio Solinas, Young-chan Ro, Michiko Yusa, Ralph Weber and Marcello Ghilardi. The collection also features interventions from Pietro Barcellona, Jacob Parappally, Gabriele Piana, Gianni Vacchelli and Filippo Dellanoce. Together, they dissect current problems and perspectives related to interculturalism, pluralism and dialogue among cultures, philosophies, behaviours and values. The issue concludes with a long reflection on the topic of peace, “the truly practical question of human coexistence on this planet”.

Since his celebrated first book of poetry, Peter Gizzi has been hailed as one of the most significant and distinctive voices writing today. Gathered from over five collections, and representing close to twenty-five years of work, the poems in this generous selection strike a dynamic balance of honesty, emotion, intellectual depth and otherworldly resonance-in Gizzi's work, poetry itself becomes a primary ground of human experience. Haunted, vibrant, and saturated with luminous detail, Gizzi's poetry enlists the American vernacular in a magical and complex music. In Defense of Nothing is an immensely valuable introduction to the work of this extraordinary and singular poet. Check for the online reader's companion at indefenseofnothing.site.weleyan.edu.

Absolute Zero Cool is a post-modern take on the crime thriller genre. Adrift in the half-life limbo of an unpublished novel, hospital porter Billy needs to up the stakes. Euthanasia simply isn’t shocking anymore; would blowing up his hospital be enough to see Billy published, or be damned? What follows is a gripping tale that subverts the crime genre’s grand tradition of liberal sadism, a novel that both excites and disturbs in equal measure. Absolute Zero Cool is not only an example of Irish crime writing at its best; it is an innovative, self-reflexive piece that turns every convention of crime fiction on its head. Declan Burke’s latest book is "an imaginative story that explores the human mind’s ability to both create and destroy, with equally devastating effects."

One good track could change everything. Just one good track and Rob Lynch can finally quit his suburban teaching job and get his band, the Terrors, once Dublin’s next big thing, the fame and recognition they dream of. But it’s not happening - they need a new sound. When Rob discovers the unique gifts of one of his students, John ‘Kembo’ Pereira, a troubled African teenager with a particular talent for creating beats, he sees an opportunity that might just keep his musical ambitions alive. As Rob and John’s relationship develops, however, a series of disturbing events unfold that will rock both their lives to the core. And when the Terrors start to crumble, Rob finds out just how far he is willing to go, and what he is willing to lose, in order to keep his dream alive. Powerfully capturing the energy, wit and pathos of a changed Dublin society, Beatsploitation gives voice to a cynical, disillusioned generation, caught between the tired values of the old and the uncertainty of the new. An assured, arresting debut by a commanding new talent. It is an innovative and original work of debut fiction and deals with international themes such as racism, economic failure, love, loss, and regret, while highlighting a different side of modern Ireland.

Seán Galvin isn’t like the other children. While they play and laugh and keep on growing up, Seán doesn’t. Instead he does stuff to things. Things like cats and dogs. Bad stuff. Seán has only one friend, the nameless narrator who tells their story. Their young lives revolve around sport and school. That is until Seán finally does something appalling and the boys have no choice but to tell someone. Someone older. Someone they should be able to trust. What they uncover is a secret far more awful than anything Seán is capable of: they witness a murder. Or do they? Because of their previous behavior, no-one believes them. They begin to unravel a rather sinister series of links between people whom they thought they could trust and the person who they saw committing the crime. Their little rural town becomes a place of cold skepticism and barely-hidden conspiracy. But is there really a conspiracy? Accused of being 'freaks', they become more and more isolated, and even Seán starts doubting. But the novel’s increasingly unhinged narrator embarks on a mission to prove that they saw what they saw and his obsession will see their friendship tested to its limits and their lives changed forever.

June, 1940. France is teetering on the brink of collapse. British troops are desperately fleeing Dunkirk. Germany is winning the war. Its next target is Britain... and Ireland. In neutral Dublin opinions are divided. Some want Germany to win, others favor Britain, most want to stay out of the war altogether. In this atmosphere of edgy uncertainty, young lieutenant Paul Duggan is drafted into G2, the army’s intelligence division, and put on the German desk. He’s given a suspected German spy to investigate, one who doesn’t appear to do much, other than write ambiguous letters to a German intelligence post box in Copenhagen. Before Duggan can probe further, however, he is diverted by a request from his politician uncle to try and find his daughter, who’s gone missing, possibly kidnapped. Enlisting the help of witty Special Branch detective Peter Gifford, the two lines of inquiry take Duggan into the double-dealing worlds of spies and politics, and lead him back to a shocking secret that will challenge everything he has grown up believing. An addictive thriller that will keep you glued to the page, right through to its heart-pounding finale.

Harry Rigby likes a smoke, the easy life, and Robert Ryan playing the bad guy in late night black-and-whites. Sweet. But when the wife of a prominent politician is murdered in her best nightie, Rigby finds himself caught in a crossfire between rogue paramilitaries, an internal police inquiry and the heaviest blizzard of coke ever to hit the northwest. If all this wasn’t bad enough, his relationship with girlfriend Denise is on the rocks and he’s hitting the bottle. Then there's Rigby's psychotic brother Gonzo, back on the streets and meaner than a jilted shark. Television rights have been acquired by a UK production company in 2013 for a potential series to be commissioned.

Robbie is a simple man who leads a simple life: he is a husband, a father, and a journalist, living and working in Dublin. However, his carefully crafted life has been interrupted by a phone call from his youngest sister, calling, after years of silence, to say his father is ill, and he should come 'home'. And so Robbie returns to Dromore, Northern Ireland, and to Larkscroft Farm, the place where he grew up and the man he grew up with. In taking care of his father - an often angry, and complex man - Robbie allows the reader into his past, revealing himself as a child, teenager, and young adult, lost in the often tumultuous world of a dysfunctional family. Such insight is rare and privileged as you begin to see that no-one in Robbie’s ‘new’ life knows anything about his past, not even his wife. My Father's House is a real and often raw account of family relationships. In Robbie and in his family there is a myriad of messy, mixed up people, tentatively sewing up the rips and tears on their way to reconciliation. This is a novel about birthplace, family, regret, and new beginnings.

Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan opens as 30-year-old Tommie Shaw is shown a newspaper report by her panicked sister Georgie revealing that their mother, Gloria, is set to release a new memoir. What follows is an engaging and rewarding black comedy, as Tommie and Georgie's panic spirals and they clamor to control Gloria while also dealing with the painful legacy of their fatherless childhood. A series of flashbacks to Tommie’s teenage years help to explain her now destructive and out-of-control lifestyle as an adult. Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan also tackles heavy subjects, including suicide and self-harm, with a light touch that feels honest rather than glib. Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan is the story of a dysfunctional family, but more importantly, about facing fears and moving on.

Harry Rigby is right there, an eye-witness when Finn Hamilton walks out into the big nothing nine stories up, but no one wants to believe Finn is just the latest statistic in Ireland's silent epidemic. Not Finn's mother, Saoirse Hamilton, whose property empire is crumbling around her; and not Finn's pregnant fiance, Maria, or his sister Grainne; and especially not Detective Tohill, the cop who believes Rigby is a stone-cold killer. Welcome to Harry Rigby's Sligo where death comes dropping slow. Studded with shards of black humor and mordant wit, Slaughter's Hound is a gripping noir from one of the most innovative voices in Irish crime fiction. In the twisted moral landscape of his surroundings, Harry must find a way free of his own heartache and pain to discover the truth about Finn’s death and what is really going on…

A gritty black comedy from a talented writer, this is an unconventional love story and an insight into the bleak landscape of post-boom Ireland. Author Christine Dwyer Hickey agrees: 'Dark, often disturbing and utterly absorbing. In The Ballad of Mo & G, Billy Keane has entered a tough world and handled it with great skill and humanity. It is also a love story for our time.' ' Even though I wished it was me she was married to, I was still hoping Mo would be happy ever after with Dermo Olsen. That was until the violence started. I loved her that much. Can you believe that?' Welcome to an unnamed town in the southwest of Ireland, where Mo and G have what could loosely be described as a dysfunctional relationship. Between the sex, beatings, and pining after Mo, there’s barely time for G to worry about his arch-enemies, the Olsens - or their Dobermans. G is plagued by nightmares, and sometimes tries to do the right thing. Very occasionally, he succeeds. In The Ballad of Mo& G, Billy Keane tackles lives lived on the edge with a sharp yet compassionate eye, and a biting black humor. An assured report from Ireland’s dark, post-boom underbelly by a supremely talented storyteller.

A small, touristy, Greek island. Sun. Sea. Sand. The perfect ingredients for a two-week package holiday - getting away from it all, taking a break from the madness. For Rob and Georgie, a young couple in their late twenties, it's a chance to reconnect, spend some much-needed time together during their busy, urban lives. For Michael, a shy, introverted man, stranded alone at the same hotel, after the friend with whom he was supposed to be holidaying returns home unexpectedly, the holiday is a revelation. Georgie feels sorry for Michael and befriends him, chatting to him each morning by the pool, sharing her thoughts and feelings. Rob is somewhat irritated by Georgie's relationship with Michael, even though he seems to be no threat and doesn't bother the two of them particularly. But Michael is increasingly drawn to Georgie. Having had no real experience himself of life or love, he takes Georgie at face value, giving huge weight to her confessions, unaware of some of their nuances and complexities. Unable to understand or deal with his conflicting emotions, and at the mercy of his powerful fantasy life, Michael sets in motion a plan that will have devastating consequences for all concerned. A taut psychological thriller, Travelling Companion is a study of how ordinary people commit appalling acts, and how horrific actions can grow from trivial misunderstandings and from the simple misreading of the signals we unwittingly give to one another.