Tales of the Yellow Silk
By Derek Hart  

     Naïve young Sergeant James Kendle thinks he is lucky to be sent to the exotic location of Thailand; beautiful willing young girls, sunshine and all the glamour of the mysterious Far East. To make things even better, he is in command of a small team called Delta and hits it off well with his new squad. During his brief tour of duty, the predictions of a fortuneteller will all come true – he will fall in love and have many adventures, but a lot more will happen and not all of it will be pleasant.

     Derek Hart has an enviably easy style, packing in a lot of adventure, military action, romance and local color in remarkably few pages. The book is essentially a series of short stories that focus on various aspects of Kendle’s tour of duty, including forays into enemy territory, life at “The Dirty Pit,” Bangkok’s fleshly delights and a certain romantic interlude. Nevertheless, they read as chapters of one continuous story. By turns comic, exciting or tragic, they seem to run the gamut of wartime emotions and make deceptively light reading while lingering in the mind long afterwards. No mean feat for such a short novel; perhaps writers of overlong doorstops ought to take a leaf out of Hart’s laconic book. I’d recommend this one to anybody who enjoys a good tale well seasoned with action and romance.