Bøger af Ram W Tuli

A MISFIRING TRIGGER WARNING: YOU'RE ABOUT TO READ FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG. DON'T STOP NOW. Muttonheads or not, in Dying Horribly at Harding Hall, Loris and Lars helped solve five of the eleven bizarre deaths that had taken place in their family over just a few decades. As Book 2, Footsteps in the Fog, opens, they learn, with mixed feelings, that those responsible for the solved murders have been hanged.Now Lars is bored at Harding Hall. But if a plot that featured eleven murders (give or take an accidental death or two) can thicken, this one is about to.Lars, it seems, now has the brawn, brains, and bravery (as well as the money) to do anything he wants, so he decides to open a detective agency in London with retired Inspector Fergus Kerr. Business is slow at first, but it picks up when the wife of a "well-connected" toff hires them to investigate whether her husband is cheating. He is, of course. Lars and Kerr bring the matter to an unconventional conclusion that leaves everybody happy (more or less). Almost overlooked in all the zany action, Loris somehow winds up with "the other woman" and they get married. But events rush on. It's 1939, and England is at war. Lars has been pestering the War Office to volunteer his detective agency to help in the war effort, and getting no response. He suspects an admiral has something to do with this neglect (this admiral had been caught cheating by Lars's detective agency). Lars sends an anonymous letter to a very important person in the government, trying to expose the admiral's treachery, but the letter is easily traced back to him. This letter changes everything. By pure coincidence, the rogue admiral is really a spy, and the War Office is impressed with Lars. Or maybe not so impressed-but they need a big, rich oaf for a vital intelligence effort, Operation Black Hat, with the goal of flushing out the Wolfsfrau, Germany's top spy in England.Lars and Loris-like everyone else involved in this escapade, including the War Office itself-are no better at being spies than at being detectives. Somehow they proceed with the operation, avoiding one peril after another. Sometimes their success comes through blind luck, at other times through sudden strokes of genius, or insight, or even uncharacteristic common sense. The conclusion of the story is intriguing and dramatic.Fast-paced and gripping on a purely narrative level, Footsteps in the Fog is laced with humor both wry and sly. It's got mystery, romance, and spy vs. spy intrigue, painted on a shape-shifting reality that is not unlike the actual world that we all stumble through. It's metaphysical slapstick. It's tragicomedy in a unique voice. And it's a damn good story.

Wow, you're like STAR babies. You're not quite sure what you've gotten yourself into but decided to "re-up" for more. This next edition of Steaming includes activity on the KP Site between Nov 21, 2002 and June 26, 2003. This period has some of my favorite stories. It also contains the most controversial tales in the collection.This second "deployment" has a slightly different flavor than the previous one. I didn't plan it that way. I just ended Volume One before it got too big. I figured you guys didn't want to get whacked over the head with anything over 600 pages when your wives got tired of hearing you laugh and then hiding the book whenever they stormed into the room. Volume Two still focuses on the Big E, but also features tales from CGN, other CVN, SSN and SSBN nukes. We fondly recollect boot camp, A-School, Nuke School, prototype, and the everyday delights of life at sea. We also become somewhat introspective and share why we chose to become navy nukes. Spoiler alert: not one of us regretted it.

A MARVELOUSLY ENTERTAINING MYSTERYIn Dying Horribly at Harding Hall, we meet a wealthy, aristocratic English family-generation after generation-of lecherous and greedy muttonheads. The story focuses on eleven mysterious deaths, with several extras along the way. There's dry and sly humor from the start, but it's only as the tapestry unfolds that we realize the truth-and the truth is becoming more and more crazed. As the farce builds, the deaths-and the motives-become outrageous, and often hilarious. But they never quite become incredible. That's because these tales of stupidity, greed, lechery, and brutality, though they may stretch our credulity on occasion, remain sadly in line with human nature.Going back to the 1920s, the heirs of Harding Hall have been dying bizarre and apparently accidental deaths. Our heroes, or more accurately antiheroes, brothers Lars and Loris Harding, have decided to call in a supposedly brilliant detective from India named Depak Chota. It's not that they are that deeply concerned about the deaths of their mostly despicable relatives. Rather, their interest has become a bit more urgent now that they are next in line to inherit Harding Hall.Despite the extravagant, sometimes even absurd, ways in which Hardings have been dying, the police have accepted each death as an accident. Some of the accidents seem fairly plausible: One man is apparently killed by lightning; another thrown off a horse and impaled on an iron-spiked wall. Two die of tropical diseases while traveling abroad. A wayward artillery shell explodes in the gallery of an air show, killing another. One Harding meets his fate by being hit over the head with a can of paint; another dies while crossing the street and being struck by a drunken car thief.But then... there's the Harding who wanders away during a cocktail party, falls down a chimney and then slowly roasts to death while the party goes on. There's also the seasick Harding on a trans-Atlantic cruise that falls over the railing and then is seen being devoured by a giant fish. For good measure there's a non-heir death in which the wife of one Harding is shot during a tryst with another Harding. The lover's story is that someone in a gorilla suit kicked in the door, shot the woman, tipped his hat, and then climbed out a window.Along with detective Chota and narrator Loris Harding, the reader gradually learns more about each death. With each revelation the picture becomes both more vivid and ludicrous. There can be no doubt that someone is killing Hardings.The characters are picturesque and highly individual. They have characteristic habits and gestures, such as Lars's tendency to drop his glass of scotch or his jaw, sending his pipe flying, whenever he is accused of anything. He is thought by many to be a bumbling idiot. But then maybe that's what he wants people to think. Loris seems clever and sensible. Yet, he has a propensity to entangle himself in unwise relationships with bawdy women.There are recurring motifs and, though with a light touch, some disturbing philosophical questions. All the major characters are sharply delineated, yet each seems composed in one way or another of a perplexing mix of this or that type of intelligence or talent... along with flaws, blind spots... and varieties of buffoonish stupidity. Who's smart and who isn't? Everybody and nobody, it seems. The humor strikes home, occasionally, as we may notice just a bit of ourselves.

Lars Harding travels to Boston to help a man. However, he learns right away that this man is missing and no one, including the police, want him found.

Gather 'round, my fellow tars and pour yourself a drink (preferably a San Miguel). What you're about to read is the largest collection of sea stories ever gathered in one place. Best of all, these stories come from fellow USS Enterprise nukes and engineers. No one can deny that the Big E was the greatest warship ever built, and that the guys who gave her her steam were the best nukes and engineers in the fleet. We were also pretty darn funny. In fact, our sense of humor was legendary. It was the one thing that helped get us through it all.More than just sea stories, these are the tales of our youth, the recollections of life-long friends, and random memories of strange people and faraway places.

Reggie Westgate is just another hard-boiled gumshoe living and working in post-war Hollywood. He doesn't even keep books because so few of his clients can pay. He just wants to help people. Then a local politician hires him to handle a blackmail case, and Westgate finds himself involved with more than simple extortion. He stumbles into the center of a mob war and it almost costs him his life.

When I began these Steaming books in January of 2018, I had no idea it would take two years and 4,280 pages to summarize everything on the old KP Site. I guess I collected quite a few stories in those 13 years. In this final edition of Steaming you'll witness the KP Site slowly fade into oblivion. It would become dormant twice when I tried to pawn off my editorial duties to the KP Facebook page. That didn't work. Everyone wanted the old site back up, even if it was rarely updated. So, I tried again. Technology, however, was unkind. I couldn't adapt to the new ways of doing things and finally pulled the plug after the 2014 inactivation ceremony. In my mind that seemed like the logical place to end it. I'm 56 years old now. The time I spent on the Big E was only 7-percent of my life. That's such a small chunk compared to the over thirty years now spent serving society as a dignified and productive family man. But that 7-percent sure was significant. It shaped me in a way everything I've done before or afterwards never could. I now look back on that time with pride, knowing I served on the greatest warship of all time with the greatest bunch of misfits ever assembled in one place. How truly blessed I was.I hope you guys enjoyed the Steaming books. I know I sure enjoyed collecting the tales and putting them together in a somewhat manageable form. Has it really been 30 years since I last set foot in 4-Plant? Yes, I guess it has. Damn, I miss you guys.

Someone Sank a Luxury Yacht in Newport, Rhode Island. No One Seems Interested in Solving the Mysyery Except the Man Wrongly Accused of Doing It.

Wow! You're on your third book! Hopefully, you're watch supervisor qualified by now, or at least making an earnest effort to get a qual card blazed off. Head back down the plant, gents. We've got more maritime memories to relive. The good news is this next volume is better than the previous two. That's a real no shitter! This book contains letters received between June 26, 2003 and March 29, 2004. The KP Site was the most popular navy nuke site on the internet by then. Thousands of ex-nukes and engineers were lurking, and many were gleefully sending in raunchy recollections. It should be obvious to all that the site was no longer just for Big E squids. Rickover propulsion plant protégées from every ship in the nuclear fleet were there, adding to the mayhem. The Ike Bites contingent was probably the second most-dominant group. I probably should have added an Ike logo to the cover. Enjoy Volume 3! KP

As Luck Would Have It is the fourth book in the Harding Hall Mysteries. Travelers on this epic journey know that it began with Dying Horribly in Harding Hall, in which 11 members of the Harding family, as well as several bystanders, met death by murder or by accident in bizarre ways. Brothers Lars and Loris Harding, as well as numerous detectives from as near as Scotland Yard and as far as India, set out to find the truth of these tragedies of greed and cruelty, or tragicomedies of fate, chance, and human error. The missing pieces will finally be added when Lars and Loris team up with their nemesis-turned-pal, Sir Donald Badminton, as they struggle to save themselves and the very country they hold dear, England.

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? There's only one way to find out: Shake the Mango Tree! Loris Harding and his brother Lars face bigger problems than most of us do. Multiple members of the Harding family and several of their wives and lovers have been murdered. War and espionage threaten the very existence of their country. One simple but powerful method exists for solving the murders and saving England: Shake the mango tree and see what falls out. By the time they finish shaking the tree, the deaths of Judah Harding, Gamaliel Harding, Eleazar Harding, Hoshaiah Harding, Hillel Harding, and Hillel's beloved Muriel have been solved. Mostly. Sort of. But is everyone dead? And who was wearing the gorilla suit? What does the gorilla mask left in the Savoy Hotel mean? What does Sir Donald Badminton have to do with everything? Who is in charge at England's crackerjack security departments, MI5 and MI6? Is Ronald Alfred Norwood the agencies' most cunning and powerful man, or is he a powerless idiot? Does Lord Whitley Gregory really exist? If Hillel is still alive, where is he?Why does Tomson order Hillel to kill Badminton? Why does Norwood order Lars to kill Loris? Why does Hillel want to kill Norwood? And why does everyone say that killing Norwood would be a bad idea?When Loris tells Badminton that Hillel "...didn't want to be found in what could only be described as an awkward situation," his understated comment could be applied to every page of the non-stop action and scheming. As loyal readers of the earlier books will remember, heirs to Harding Hall have been dying bizarre deaths, one after another. Each heir's death could be explained as accidental, or as karmic payback for his sins. Yet the way each death conveniently benefits the next inheritor of Harding Hall's immense wealth, accident seems unlikely. Certainly, no one believes that to be true.In another "awkward situation," Hillel's mistress Muriel is shot in a hotel room where she was in bed with her lover (presumably Hillel). Hillel says he ran out when a man in a gorilla suit burst in the door. A drunken tramp who was sleeping in an alley below has been hanged for the crime.In The Mango Tree, each death is examined anew by different witnesses. New light falls on the facts as well as the character of those involved, as if the pieces are turning in a kaleidoscope. People and events are larger, stranger, and funnier than real life, all the more with each new revelation. Conclusions that seemed certain are turned upside down. But is this really stranger than real life? At certain moments, the resemblance to reality becomes striking. In addition to showing familiar murders in a new light, The Mango Tree adds wonderful new incidents to the story. Lars's heroism and Badminton's shameful treatment of Cronin at the Siege of Ladysmith is a vivid episode from the Boer War. Thaddeus Tycock's visit to King's College to help struggling students Loris and Hillel is another touching and funny side trip. Tycock rescues the two Hardings from bullies, then helps keep Hillel from flunking out. One improbable result is that Hillel takes up a career of spying.Loris and Lars keep shaking the mango tree, and what falls out is curiouser and curiouser. This mango grove is densely populated with people who, like people in the real world outside the novel, are full of contradictions. Their lives become complex and entangled, yet remain believable, at least within the universe of the tale. Loris is an unreliable narrator, yet he amuses, fascinates, and informs. As he himself says, "I've discovered that I have a unique talent. I can make anyone believe anything by intertwining trivial lies around significant truths."Read it now. Look what has fallen out of the mango tree!

Alas, the Steaming series is coming to an end. This will be the second to last volume. This edition contains letters from 6/27/06 to 6/1/08. As you can see, the frequency of correspondence is now starting to greatly diminish. I didn't know it then but the KP Site was starting to take on water. Technology was rapidly advancing and it was leaving me behind. Hell, I was still editing my webpages the old-fashioned way, using a 1999 version of Microsoft Frontpage. This dog was too old to learn new tricks and it was starting to show. I love the letters in Volume 6. They're about people I knew and loved, places I knew and loved, and the special times I had with these people in those places. Almost everyone from my era is now present and accounted for and most agree they remember only the good times. Even veterans of the Newport News overhaul seem less jaded. Time had finally softened the Norfolk nightmare. Could it be that even the Y2K gang was becoming sentimental too? It sure seemed that way.The Big E's last generation of nukes and engineers were reporting aboard during this era of correspondence. These yarns (and the ones that had been coming in for six years) were now required reading. The KP Site was a poorly kept secret. Even the scrambled-egg-on-the-hat types were secretly lurking. A tale uploaded one day was discussed the next down in the plants, up in the wardrooms, and even in some remote NAVSEA office. We 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s old salts might not have contributed much to overall plant safety, but we certainly inspired many a 3rd Class Petty Officer to accept his or her lot in life and strive to be noteworthy on a ship that had a history like no other.Grandfathers, fathers, and now sons and daughters could brag that they steamed on the mighty Enterprise. No other ship of the line had sailors that loved their home more. How could that be? The Big E was a genuine shitshow. Everything was FUBAR. HP-tape and J-B Weld held most of it together. There wasn't even a supply chain that could help anymore. But yet, everyone did their job and did it better than any other snipe or twidget in the fleet. They understood they were part of a legend. They knew it would actually mean something to have served on the Carrier with Class. Sadly, her time is up. Sure, another ship will call herself Enterprise, but that one-immaculate, sleek, pristine, state of the art-could never be as special. What made the CVN 65 unique was her crew, not her labyrinth of machines. No other ship in the world had men and women serving with such pride.