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Shadows
on an
Iron Curtain

..........................by...........................
M J Brett

ISBN  # 978-0-9748869-1-2
...........................................................................................................................
      Shadows on an Iron Curtain, by M.J. Brett, illustrates the clashing tensions that existed between the Soviet Union and the United States from the end of World War II--the years of the Cold War, as seen through the naïve eyes of a young widow, Megan James. While everyone knows of the Berlin Wall, few know of the Border that slashed across a divided and dangerous Europe. During the 1970’s, the 2nd and 3rd Armored Cavalry troops and their support units defending this Border were on constant Alert against the threatening Soviet Army, thus increasing the pressure on soldiers, their friends, and families.

      Megan’s naiveté brings her both comic and tragic learning experiences and widely disparate friends—fellow teachers Emily, a mother figure with an imaginary “Ambassador,” sophisticated, rational Abby, flirtatious Lila who cannot seem to understand the need for military security, and notorious womanizing CAV pilot, Carl, who senses Megan’s vulnerability and vows to protect her from her own fears. The women soon learn the best kept military secret--that if the Soviets cross the Border, as they constantly threaten, their officer friends must hold for forty-eight hours before help, probably nuclear, will come—i.e. a potential suicide mission.

      Constant Border ‘Alert’ conditions foster camaraderie unknown Stateside. The single officers and teachers form a ‘family’ and protect each other in the face of international danger, sabotaged ‘accidents,’ and personal crises. Under Carl’s tutelage, Megan again dates and falls in love. But her new love, Ed, is an undercover agent so deeply involved in international intrigue that he is a target for Communist operatives, i.e. a "Spook."  When Lila’s ‘loose talk,’ inadvertently brings the friends to a violent climax, all must learn new coping mechanisms to help each other go on. Though a novel of grief recovery, it also documents the challenge in learning to teach overseas for the Department of Defense Dependent school teachers, and especially the missions of the Cavalry, Engineers, Artillery, Infantry, Intelligence, and Aviation who defended the Border between free and enslaved people for forty years.

      This novel is a journey to find hope in friendship during a period of intense pressure world wide, until the Berlin Wall fell, the Border opened, and the Cold War ended.

      Shadows on an Iron Curtain is M.J. Brett’s second novel. The first, Mutti’s War, is in its third printing, being considered as a movie, and won the prestigious Paul Gillette Award for Historical Fiction. It documents a mother’s attempt to walk across Europe to save her three little boys during the last chaotic days of World War II and it’s aftermath.

      M.J. Brett is a retired teacher, having lived and worked twenty-one years in Germany, seven of them on this East/West communist Cold War Border, teaching the children of military members for the Department of Defense. 

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