KBL: KILL BIN LADEN

By John Weisman (Morrow, 302 pages, $26.99)

We all know how this story ends -- at a villa in Pakistan, in the early morning hours of May 2, 2011. What we don't know is how it started, how it was planned and, despite some tantalizing tidbits in news reports, how it was executed. And, frankly, it's unlikely we'll know the answers to those questions for some time. In the meantime we have this riveting fictionalized account of the operation to take down Osama Bin Laden from the fertile imagination and expertise of John Weisman, one of the nation's foremost military analysts. Veteran CIA operative Robert Baer called this book "a true story that can only be told in fiction," and for once a blurb isn't hyperbole. Weisman used his deep contacts in the military to weave together an entirely plausible tale of how Bin Laden was finally nailed. Moreover, his portraits of the top-ranking U.S. civilian officials (whose names are obvious despite the pseudonyms) are eminently believable, if not very flattering. Unusual, too, for a novel of this sort is the absence of a single primary character on which to hang the story. Rather, Weisman uses a wide cast of well-etched personalities to move the story with alacrity and precision. A bravura performance, this. If there is a minor fault it is the surfeit of jargon -- acronyms and milspeak. Veterans may be at ease with it, but it can be an impediment to civilians.

MICHAEL J. BONAFIELD

NEWS COPY EDITOR

GRANT'S FINAL VICTORY

By Charles Bracelen Flood (Da Capo Press, 288 pages, $27.50)

Two decades after his Civil War victories and seven years after leaving the White House, Ulysses S. Grant fought a two-front battle against cancer and poverty. Charles Bracelen Flood's book, "Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year," chronicles that sad story, which began in 1884 with the collapse of Grant's investment company and the loss of his extended family's wealth at the hands of business partners who swindled him. Soon after that disaster, Grant learned he had terminal cancer, and, realizing that his family could be left destitute, he set about writing the war memoir he had never intended to write. He soon got help from Mark Twain, who eventually published the two-volume memoir that became an instant bestseller and restored Grant's family's fortunes. Flood describes Grant's painful struggle to write as the tumors spread and ultimately took his life -- just three days after he completed the final page. Once you read Flood's highly recommended book, you will want to put Grant's memoirs on your reading list.

DAVID SHAFFER

BUSINESS REPORTER