Mary Machine Gun

Supernatural creatures surround us. An ancient order founded by Einar the Evergood, a Viking sent to the first crusade by the church, is set against them. Mary is a warrior bound to destroy these abominations in a world that does not know its danger.

Supernatural creatures surround us. An ancient order founded by Einar the Evergood, a Viking sent to the first crusade by the church, is set against them. Mary is a warrior bound to destroy these abominations in a world that does not know its danger.

During the infamous raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, Antonio Salazar, one of Pancho Villa's bandit chiefs, kidnaps Mary Wells, daughter of New Mexico rancher Frank MacPherson. MacPherson's longtime foreman, James Hampton, determines to go deep into Mexico to rescue the girl he remembers as Little Mary. Hamp's old friend, Bud Tyler, goes with him, as does MacPherson's nephew, the greenhorn Reuben Satterwhite. For Hamp and Tyler, the mission is reminiscent of adventures shared years before as Texas Rangers, when both were young and strong and felt immortal. For Satterwhite, it is adventure and apprenticeship. Once into Mexico, all three men must cross psychological frontiers as well as geographic borders. Mary, meanwhile, has borders of her own to cross. In clean, straightforward prose, the action alternates between Mary and her rescuers, and David Fleming draws the reader into a threatening web where ultimately survival is not the most important thing. In this, his second novel, Fleming demonstrates the creativity and historical responsibility required to turn history into spellbinding fiction.

During World War I and World War II, Rhode Island was dotted with coastal forts filled with large caliber guns. Yet they were never fired in anger. By contrast, from 1929 to 1933, during Prohibition, U.S. Coast Guard vessels frequently fired machine guns at rumrunners in Narragansett Bay. Machine gun fire killed three rumrunners and wounded another on the notorious Black Duck. Despite the incident drawing national protests, the carnage continued. The Coast Guard fired machine guns at dozens more rumrunners in Rhode Island waters, killing another man, severely wounding two others, and causing several boats to explode or sink. Join author and historian Christian McBurney as he explores the use of excessive force in Narragansett Bay and other Rhode Island waters.