Bøger af Mark Zuehlke

When environmental warrior Ira Connaught turns up hanging by the neck from an ancient rainforest cedar overlooking the wasteland of a clear-cut on Clayoquot Sound, everyone seems content to declare his death a suicide. The tree spiker won't be missed by loggers, Tofino's RCMP detachment, or by many environmentalists who applauded his goals but condemned his tactics. For reluctant community coroner Elias McCann, Ira's death looks increasingly like a murder. Elias is no forensic pathologist, no doctor. A quirk in BC law enables anyone of good community standing to be appointed local coroner. But RCMP Sergeant Gary Danchuk does not believe that Elias meets even the quirk in the law. Danchuk remains convinced - against all evidence - that McCann murdered his wife, Merriam, two years earlier in order to clear the way for his love affair with Vhanna Chan. Hands Like Clouds is the first in a series of mysteries revolving around the troubled life of Elias McCann, son of a remittance man and local coroner.

When the corpse of a girl known only as Sparrow is found wrapped in barbed wire on a storm-swept beach, community coroner Elias McCann must investigate the sadistic killing. Suspects abound in The Family, a gaggle of homeless youths led by a grizzled veteran of Canada's mean streets. But menace also seems to lurk around the neglected property that so fascinated Sparrow before her death. The property is slated for transformation into a seaside resort by a developer who seems intent on acquiring all of Tofino -- and Elias's girlfriend, Vhanna Chan. To find the killer Elias must first unravel the mystery of Sparrow's past.

When a freighter smuggling illegal immigrants from Southeast Asia sinks offshore, Tofino coroner Elias McCann finds himself at the heart of another mystery. Among the survivors of the tragedy is a young girl, whom Elias and his girlfriend, Vhanna, find themselves trying to protect from unknown kidnappers. Meanwhile, a relative of Vhanna's turns up among the immigrants, bringing back memories of her dark past and the Khmer Rouge. As the plot unfolds, compelling questions are raised: most importantly, who is responsible for the immigrants being here, and what do they want with Vhanna's cousin?

Following his national best-seller, Juno Beach, and with his usual verve and narrative skill, historian Mark Zuehlke chronicles the crucial six days when Canadians saved the vulnerable beachheads they had won during the D-Day landings. D-Day ended with the Canadians six miles inlandï the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces during this longest day in history. But for all the horror endured on June 6 every soldier knew the worst was yet to come. The Germans began probing the Canadian lines early in the morning of June 7 and shortly after dawn counter attacked in force. The ensuing six days of battle between a Canadian division determined to widen its hold on the beachhead and an equally determined foe intent on eliminating Juno Beach was to prove bloodier than D-Day itself. Although battered and bloody, the Canadians had held their ground and made it possible for the slow advance toward Germany and eventual Allied victory to begin. Holding Juno recreates this pivotal battle and the ultimate triumph of Canadian arms through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, with the same dramatic intensity and factual detail that made Juno Beach, in the words of Quill & Quire reviewer Michael Clark, "the defining popular history of Canada's D-Day battle."

On June 6, 1944 the greatest armada in history stood off Normandy and the largest amphibious invasion ever began as 107,000 men aboard 6,000 ships pressed toward the coast. Among this number were 18,000 Canadians, who were to land on a five-mile long stretch of rocky ledges fronted by a wide expanse of sand. Code named Juno Beach. Here, sheltered inside concrete bunkers and deep trenches, hundreds of German soldiers waited to strike the first assault wave with some ninety 88-millimetre guns, fifty mortars, and four hundred machine guns. A four-foot-high sea wall ran across the breadth of the beach and extending from it into the surf itself were ranks of tangled barbed wire, tank and vessel obstacles, and a maze of mines.Of the five Allied forces landing that day, they were scheduled to be the last to reach the sand. Juno was also the most exposed beach, their day's objectives eleven miles inland were farther away than any others, and the opposition awaiting them was believed greater than that facing any other force. At battle's end one out of every six Canadians in the invasion force was either dead or wounded. Yet their grip on Juno Beach was firm.

The story of I Canadian Corps's crossing of the Emilia-Romagna plain, in the thirteenth instalment of the bestselling Canadian Battle Series.

The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, Breakout from Juno, is the first dramatic chronicling of Canada''s pivotal role throughout the entire Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.On July 4, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division won the village of Carpiquet but not the adjacent airfield. Instead of a speedy victory, the men faced a bloody fight. The Canadians advanced relentlessly at a great cost in bloodshed. Within 2 weeks the 2nd Infantry and 4th Armoured divisions joined coming together as the First Canadian Army.The soldiers fought within a narrow landscape extending a mere 21 miles from Caen to Falaise. They won a two-day battle for Verrières Ridge starting on July 21, after 1,500 casualties. More bloody battles followed, until finally, on August 21, the narrowing gap that had been developing at Falaise closed when American and Canadian troops shook hands. The German army in Normandy had been destroyed, only 18,000 of about 400,000 men escaping. The Allies suffered 206,000 casualties, of which 18,444 were Canadians.Breakout from Juno is a story of uncommon heroism, endurance and sacrifice by Canada''s World War II volunteer army and pays tribute to Canada''s veterans.

As part of Operation Husky 2013, a group of Canadians walked this route to honour the memory of the nation’s soldiers who fought in Sicily seventy years earlier and whose sacrifice has been largely forgotten. Under a searing sun, with Mount Etna’s soaring heights always in the distance, a small contingent of marchers trekked each day along winding country roads for between 15 and 35 kilometres to reach the outskirts of a small town or village. Here they were joined by a pipe band, which led them to the skirl of bagpipes in a parade into the community’s heart to be met by hundreds of cheering and applauding Sicilians. Before each community’s war memorial a service of remembrance for both the Canadian and Sicilian war dead followed. Each day also brought the marchers closer to their final destination—Agira Canadian War Cemetery where 490 of the 562 Canadian soldiers who fell during the course of Operation Husky in 1943 are buried. On July 30—after twenty gruelling days—the marchers were joined here by almost a thousand Canadians and Italians. All joined to conduct a profoundly emotional ceremony of remembrance that ended with one person standing before each headstone and answering the roll call on that soldier’s behalf. Mark Zuehlke, author of the award-winning Canadian Battle Series, was one of the Operation Husky 2013 marchers. He uses this arduous and poignant task as a focal point for a contemplative look at the culture of remembrance and the experience of war.

The story of how First Canadian Army opened the way to the Allied victory in World War II, in the twelfth instalment of the bestselling Canadian Battle Series.

Following his national best-seller, "Juno Beach," and with his usual verve and narrative skill, historian Mark Zuehlke chronicles the crucial six days when Canadians saved the vulnerable beachheads they had won during the D-Day landings. D-Day ended with the Canadians six miles inland -- the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces during this longest day in history. But for all the horror endured on June 6 every soldier knew the worst was yet to come. The Germans began probing the Canadian lines early in the morning of June 7 and shortly after dawn counter attacked in force. The ensuing six days of battle was to prove bloodier than D-Day itself. Although battered and bloody, the Canadians had held their ground and made it possible for the slow advance toward Germany and eventual Allied victory to begin. "Holding Juno" recreates this pivotal battle through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, with the same dramatic intensity and factual detail that made "Juno Beach," in the words of "Quill & Quire" reviewer Michael Clark, "the defining popular history of Canada's D-Day battle."

For the Allied armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944, Rome was the prize that could be won through one of the greatest offensives of the war. The Liri Valley was a long, flat corridor through miles of rugged mountains. At one end stood the formidable Monte Cassino, at the other, Rome. In May 1944, I Canadian Corps drove up this valley toward the Italian capital, facing the infamous "Hitler Line" a bastion of concrete bunkers fronted by wide swaths of tangled barbed wire, minefields, and "Tobruk" weapon pits. The ensuing battle resulted in Canada''s single bloodiest day of the Italian Campaign. But the sacrifice of young Canadians during the twenty-four days of relentless combat it took to clear the valley paved the way for the Allies to take Rome.

In this third volume of his critically acclaimed trilogy tracing Canada''s involvement in World War II''s Italian campaign, Mark Zuehlke vividly recounts the Battle of the Gothic Line. The line was meant to be impregnable, a final fortified position that would enable the battered German divisions to bring the Allied advance up Italy''s boot to a decisive halt. On August 25, 1944, it fell to the soldiers of I Canadian Corps to spearhead the British Eighth Army''s attempt to rip a hole in the line. For the next twenty-eight days, the men of 1st Canadian Infantry Division and 5th Canadian Armoured Division slugged their way through a rugged killing ground in the most costly battle of the campaign. The Gothic Line portrays the horror, the fear, the courage, and ultimately the glory that Canadians won on this remote battlefield.