It’s 1970 and Augie Cumpton has just survived a year in Vietnam. When he returns home from the war, his life is upended when he offends some very ruthless members of organized crime. But when the Mob is duped by Augie’s family into thinking the young man is dead, the crime family abandon’s the search for him.

Augie is alive, but he is forced to live a lie. He has to leave his hometown, and his Italian American family behind. And he must assume a new identity. As long as the Mob thinks he’s dead, he has a chance for a new life. So, he flees to the California wine country. But Augie is still dealing with the awful emotional and psychological trauma of his service in Vietnam. And, to make matters worse, the love of his life has abandoned him. When the Mob discovers that Augie is still alive, they send a couple of psychotic hit men to find and murder him. Can he survive the relentless pursuit of these cold-blooded killers? 

Augie’s Wine is a vintage historical thriller that serves up a delicious blend of tension, intrigue and danger. With nuances of romance and humor, the novel is a spirited cuvee sure to please every literary palate.

If you take a sip of Augie’s Wine, you’ll want the whole bottle!

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John H Brown delivers a masterfully written story with palpable tension, offbeat characters and hilarious incidents. Augie’s World also highlights the Italian American experience where good food and candid conversation is a family feast served up daily. 

Augie’s World is a tale of one man’s struggle to deal with the invisible scars of war while trying to help his family overcome a deadly threat.  The book also underscores the significance of family, and the life-long attachments that bind us together through our ancestral relationships.

When Augie Cumpton returns home from Vietnam, he is physically unscathed, but Augie is suffering from PTSD.  As a result, Augie begins self-medicating with alcohol and drugs to obliterate his wartime memories and nightmares. Then to compound his situation, an incident involving Augie, his family and The Mob presents a new and perilous problem.  Augie has incited the vindictive wrath of the Black Hand in Pittsburgh, and now both he and his family become targets of the mob. And while Augie has the support of his large Italian American family, he also has a new girlfriend and an odd assortment of characters. Bow Wow Bardolino, Hambone Harman and Spud Duncan help him hide from the deadly pursuit of evil killers like Frankie Three Fingers Bonamico and the other made men of the mob.  At the same time, can Augie find a way to exorcise his PTSD demons? And through all of these complications, will he be able keep the promising and healing relationship with his new girlfriend Lou? 

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Augie’s War explores the healing power of family to recharge the human spirit when wartime experiences threaten to darken the very soul of the protagonist. Augie Cumpton leans on, and flashes back to, childhood memories of his large and boisterous Italian American family, the bakery where he worked and the humorous, sometimes outrageous, but always memorable characters of his youth.

Like  “Tapper Two” – Frankie Secondo- a tap dancing teacher who would whistle between words and sentences all the while executing perfect pirouettes and splits when he came to the bakery each day to buy a loaf of bread. Or Johnny Trupo, a neighborhood kid who invented a weird game using the corpse of a flattened feline. These memories of home (and many more) provide Augie with a temporary respite from the awful realities of war -a war compounded by the incompetence and sometimes outlandish schemes devised by his superiors.

There are also a slew of offbeat fellow soldiers who share Augie’s Vietnam experiences. Tobias Chang (who refers to himself as CLTC or Chief Lackey Tobias Chang) is the self-deprecating voice of reason in the unit. “Rooster” Washington, an inner-city infantryman who has seen it all, shows Augie ways of surviving both the war and the ignorance of the military commanders. Rotor Charlie is a north Georgia helicopter pilot who swears he spotted a pink armored personnel carrier in the middle of a battlefield. And then there is Staff Sergeant Roy Shaver who runs the off-duty NCO Club. Shaver would gladly kill any soldier who complained about the sergeant’s right to cheat him by short-pouring his drinks, rigging the slot machines and overcharging him for the skinny Vietnamese prostitutes he pimped.

As Augie’s Vietnam deployment draws to a close and enemy attacks are a daily occurrence, he must find a way to not only survive the war, but also make life and death decisions forced on him by a coterie of deranged and corrupt superiors. If he refuses to comply with their illegal demands, he may end up like another soldier in his unit who is murdered.