The Park Is Mine

by Stephen Peters

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446300357
• ISBN13: 9780446300353
• Release Date: July 1982
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Kickass pulp military fiction

'Nam vet goes WHACK and takes over Central Park in NYC, kills a bunch of cops and a few idiots. Hot chick thrown in for good measure (with actual character development!), and an alcoholic Mayor's liaison to the NYPD is conflicted and torn as the ex-'Nam intel officer who did a month in the bush. Schizophrenic vet can't quite tell the difference between his flashbacks and reality (ex-LRRP guy) and in the book's biggest stretch yet takes the girl along on firefights and patrols inside the park. The cover on my Warner Books copy is priceless - standard romance novel flame in the background (lol wut?) and a guy and a girl about to get down, with an oak (?) leaf and disjointed book title letters. Book was basis for not-quite-cult-status TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones before he hit it big and Yaphet Kotto of Homicide: Life on the Streets. It's worth noting that the book's main sort-of-but-not-quite bad guy Eubanks is kind of switched with Dix in the movie, presumably to make things easier or simpler on movie audiences and maybe due to flashback 'Nam characterization scenes being a bit more expensive to film(?). I personally wish the author had explored the consequences to the families of killing police officers as killing people who are just doing their jobs is a bit of an a**hole thing to do imho, and showing that would've ...nvm, that's the author's prerogative I suppose. All in all a good, underrated read if you like books like John Steakley's brilliant cult hit Armor and movies like the ones Tommy Lee Jones gets cast in. Hat's off to the author for a good concept and a story with some depth and a bit of character development here and there. Just don't take it too seriously or you won't enjoy it. I highly doubt Stephen Peters ever did time in the dirt or there'd be massive more flashbacks and detail about that, but he pulls it off nonetheless.