Ring of Fire: An Alaskan Adventure Kindle Edition

Tanyo Ravicz describes himself in a manner that draws us into his circle from the start.' A Lutheran-Jewish-Atheist-Swedish-Romanian-American born in the ancient capital of the Aztec Empire. It was enough to get me into Harvard University 17 years later. If childhood was an extended daydream on L.A.'s beaches, Harvard was an intellectual and hormonal insanity which I fortunately survived with all of my fragments intact. You can see why after trying life in its civilized guises I moved to Alaska in search of reality. Each time I found it, I wrote about it. Over the years Alaska became, like any true love, a focus of my writing.'

Tanyo's writing style is rich in adventure and humor, doled out in the correct amounts to make his works immediately recognizably his own. Style. He has is down pat and his stories, though centered in the Alaska that we all find intriguing have a flavor that makes them universal - they just happen to be located in Alaska.

His plot synopsis pulls us in: `Master hunting guide Hank Waters, a former Navy pilot, runs a wilderness lodge on the Alaska Peninsula. The opportunity of his career comes when Prince Tariq, the Crown Prince of Rahman, arrives in Alaska to hunt brown bear. Waters has always been ambivalent about guiding his wealthy clients to hunt the bears that he loves, and his fears are not groundless. Exploiting their privilege, the Prince's men violate one law after another in a rising spiral of transgression. Can Hank Waters and his staff -- Kim the young Aleut woman, Frenchy the irascible cook, Betty the victim of hopelessness -- maintain order among so many men accustomed to having their way in the world? How far should Waters go to accommodate his guests in exchange for the money he will earn? Set in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, far from the centers of civilization, this short novel charts the destructive collision of two worlds, the world of global power, finance, and high technology, and the world of the American past, independent, idealistic, and itself compromised by its excesses. In the wake of the tragedy that unfolds, the climactic bear hunt is charged with moral excitement. Ring of Fire is a parable of power and corruption and the fugitive virtues of simplicity and love.'

So goes the story, but the pleasure is in the piquant writing style, and the first time visitor to Tanyo Ravicz' genre deserves a taste; ` The Prince recognizes that he has left you understaffed and he asks that I offer you my assistance," the young man named Sammy said. His eyes were wide and sweet-looking, brown with the yellowy translucence of dates. Understaffed is an understatement, Waters thought. Security had limited him to three hands, Frenchy in the kitchen and Kim and Betty as housemaids, whereas he usually kept five hands during the fall bear season, not including his assistant guide whom he'd had to let go. The Secret Service on the American side had knocked Frenchy around because of his prison record but in the end had let him stay because he'd been with Waters for a number of years and -- Frenchy had won some blue ribbons for his chefwork in California before he chucked it all and moved to Alaska knowing he was still a scofflaw at heart and would end up in stir again if he didn't get some elbow room; took to working camp cook jobs in the bush where much that rankles a man is leached out of him by the oblivion -- and because Waters swore that nobody could pepper a moose steak like Frenchy or carve a prime rib as artfully or lemon a trout or steam a crab quite as tenderly. About Kim and Betty, on the other hand, nobody on either the Rahmani or the American side fretted because it seemed impossible that two Aleut women at the end of the world should know or care anything at all about an Arab sheik and his Middle East peace talks.'

Now jump in for a jolly romp - it is only 100 pages but it carries the power of an epic. Grady Harp, January 15

Prince Tariq's airplane lands at the hunting lodge, and the Alaskan brown bear guide, Hank Waters, observes it from his window. And this powerful story has begun. The author involves you in the action right away. Hank Waters has the well-paying but trying job of helping the wealthy Crown Prince Tariq kill a trophy bear. Ravicz handles the provocative material with a confident, vivid style. The writing is high quality. I personally think the evildoer Aziz gets off too easy for victimizing the lodge employees, but that seems to be part of the point. Hank Waters, who was mauled by a bear in his younger days as a guide, broods about right and wrong, but the action is fast-paced and the dialogue is very sharp. This book Ring of Fire is a "hunt" worth taking.

I didn't have extremely high expectations when I ordered this book, but I enjoy an Alaskan setting and decided to take a look. I have no reservations giving Ring of Fire a 5 star review. The character development is remarkable given the brevity of the book, the pacing is exceptional and the conflict development/resolution is thought provoking. The contrasting value structures of the protagonist and antagonist are worth examining, while the backdrop of a bear hunt in the Alaskan wilderness adds to the tension.

I read Ravicz's novel A Man of His Village two years ago and couldn't forget it. I tried his new book Ring of Fire and it's just as good and very intense. Scary -- I wouldn't want to be at Waters Landing, the Alaskan wilderness lodge, during these events that he narrates -- but memorable. I could really see it. I've been to Alaska before (though not the Alaska Peninsula) and Ravicz knows his terrain. Wish this was on audio for my commute, I'd sit through it again.

A good Alaska story and probably close to true.

Great Read..!