Heart of War: A Descent Into Darkness

Captain Parker declares war on a politically powerful traitor to England. Immediately, Parker becomes a marked man. All hell is visited upon him, but Parker has been fighting battles since he was seven years old and is not easily daunted. To survive, he fights one brutal battle after another, descending into war's inexpressible darkness.

The author of this well-crafted thriller stages his war from a perspective that sheds light on our post 9/11 experiences. We observe the overextended British Empire fighting two wars amidst the corruption resulting from war's confusion and excess.

This is an 18th century sea story. It is, however, more than just a sea story-in the way that Heart of War is more than a steamer trip into the Congo. For its brilliance and its honesty, it will win a place in the reader's heart.

"Hal Weidner has emerged to write a spectacular yarn in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. Weidner's imagination creates a hair-raising thriller that will keep you rooted to your easy chair with the doors locked. Weidner's twists, turns and subplots keep us guessing by pitting good and evil against an uneasy grey. I could not put this book down."
-Robert Sain, psychiatrist and author.

"In Hal Weidner's novel, the beauty and strangeness of the past and of the sea are evoked in spare and lovely prose. This novel brings to life a fully imagined reality in all its splendor. Heart of War is suspenseful and languorous, sparse and lyrical, by a novelist fully capable of transporting the reader skillfully to its world."
-Laura Kasischke, Internationally renowned poet and novelist.

"Hal Weidner's vivid depiction of warfare, intrigue, treachery, and heroism among British, American and French factions during the 18th Century mirrors eerily the tensions that we see and imagine shaping the world today."
-Tom Zimmerman. Editor, The Huron River Review.

After graduating from Columbia College, Hal R. Weidner served in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He obtained his PhD and taught at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During summers, Weidner worked as mate aboard fishing boats and boom tugs in the Northwest. He is retired as an instructor emeritus.