Customer Reviews

Goodbye, Yobo

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Goodbye, Yobo is a straightforward military crime novel featuring the exploits of Buck Ballow's CID Chief Warrant Officer Edward "Easy" Behr on assignment at the fictional Camp Crockett in South Korea. With the assistance and support of Provost Marshal Camptain Jared Carposi, Behr meets a numer of challenges in his new aasignment, including restoring a semblance of law and order to the nearby village, called "Tombstone" by the troops at the camp. Through the course of this year assignment at Crockett, Behr reestableishes respect for the military police in both the troops and the villagers, breaks up a major black marketing ring, solves a murder, suicide and encounters some seemingly supernatiural going on. In addition he endears himself to the local business gils, mama-sans and Korean military police and civil authorities, as well as the camp commander.

Ballow is ex-CID and his vast knowledge of the branch's activitie, as well as the intricacies of operations in a foreigh country add detail and breadth to the book. He carefully avoids thatt bane of all readers - unexplained jargon decipherable only by insiders and takes the time to explain the background and meaning of the various plot elements, from how prisoners are handled to Korean shamans, to the reader. I rarely had to ask "now what exactly does that mean."

Behr is a larger than life CID man, but Ballow avoids the easy, and fatal, mistake of making him a caricature of a CID man. Ballow may be shmarter and more confident than even the young Provost Marshal, but he is netiher superhero nor a James Bond like character with powers beyound tohse of mortal men - he is simply intelligent, culturally aware, savvy and experienced. Behr is a believable "military cop" and readers will easily find themselves admiring him, accepting all of his characyer traits and all too human flaws.

Berhr's approach to the problems, make that challenges, he faces is believable, ingenious and at times fun. I won't give away the answers but the juxtapositon of ghosts, criminals, prostitutes and law enforcement personnel is entertaining and a real delight.

Goodbye, Yobo is thoroughly enjoyable whose believable characters and exotic locales are painted with loving attention by a twenty year CID veteran and a worthy addition to the military crime genre. If you're looking for a fun crime book to read Goodbye, Yobo is a wothy choice.

Review by David W. Tschanz, MWSA Reviewer (November 2009)

Like this review title says, perhaps I am biased, but I think this is a wonderful book. Not only because my uncle is the author, just because of the adventure that this story tells of. Buy this book...you won't regret it. :)

This is a wonderful book full of fun. The author, Buck Ballow was an intelligence officer in Korea and Japan. He knows what he is writing about. His character Easy Behr is a guy that gets a job done and has fun doing it. Read this book and join in the fun.