Lawrence Gardella

China Maze is an interesting book to read. It's meant to be read as a factual account written by an ex-Marine on his deathbed circa 1979 about a 1952 CIA-sponsored mission by six Marines into China to blow up a Chinese communist atomic test facility. And then hike 1,000 miles across the country to try and escape. Only to find out it was a suicide mission. The front of the book reads "Fact or Fiction? The incredible account of the raid that never was." And in the Acknowledgements section, the author, Lawrence Gardella, thanks characters in the book, presumably real life people he encountered in China while fulfilling his mission. Yet at the same time, on the copyright page, the publisher has printed the following: "All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention." Huh. Interesting. I did some Googling and apparently there's some controversy about this book. Some people think it really happened and the government applied pressure to the publisher to put that text in the book. Others think it's wild fiction, completely made up. I'm not sure where I stand, but I think I would be willing to believe it. I think it's plausible. One thing, though, is we'll never be able to ask the author. He literally was writing this on his deathbed. The publisher wrote this on the final page of the book: "Lawrence Gardella died on Monday, February 16, 1981, as this book was going into production." And apparently that really happened! Odd, eh?

In the book, "Rickey," a 17-year-old Marine, is picked up and taken to a place in the desert with several other Marines where, over the course of two weeks, he is taught parachuting, how to shoot AKs, how to dress in Chinese garb, etc, et al. Then, the six are loaded into a plane and dropped over China. Pretty sparse planning on the part of the author -- he's no Forsyth -- but still, the story begins. They meet up with some Chinese nationalists and find the atomic testing facility. Which they blow up. But they get into a firefight as they try to escape and several die, as do a number of their Chinese allies. What follows is a bizarre and harrowing tale of Rickey's travels over the next 22 days, with the help of the "Dragon Lady," her Mongol friends, and countless others. He kills dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Chinese commies, as well as Russian advisers, and is dumbfounded when he finds out he's been double-crossed by his own government. He was never meant to return. But return he did. I'll let you read the book to discover how. I'll also let you read the book to discover what happens when he does and everything that goes with it. This is an exciting book. There's a lot of action. The only reason I'm not giving it five stars is, it's not heavy on the details, on the preparation, like Forsyth and some of the others. The protagonist just winds up in scenarios and you have to accept them at face value and sometimes that's hard. Otherwise it's a good book. Recommended.… (meer)