Kindle Edition Amazon gjgriffithswriter http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008PFCPUK Category:  Literary Fiction Publisher: GJG ISBN-10:  1470192136 Type: Fiction Pages: 244 Copyright: June 2013 ISBN-13: 9781470192136 Price: $2.99 (eBook) NOW ONLY 0.99! FALLEN HERO is about a man who seems to spend his life building bridges: Bridges between his unknown origins and his aspirations in life. Once he finds a tenuous link to his biological father Chris Squires cannot help but follow its path and despite his misgivings he seeks out his roots. Fallen Hero is a biographical fiction about a man who is trying to reconcile the realities of war, and life, with his disappointment over his lost inner hopes for the dad he needed to find. Two boys about to become teenagers: Christopher, born just after the end of World War Two, grows up in the UK; Fritz, orphaned by a bomb dropped on his German home in that same terrible war, befriended by a US marine. When Christopher discovers he was adopted he seeks to find his biological father. Fritz never gets the chance to grow much older and is found dead in the back of General George Patton's Cadillac at the end of the war. Chris Squires is a confused man, constantly seeking his hero father-figure. The British baby boomer is surprised to find he has a connection with Fritz. Chris discovers the link through Jimmy Lucas, a GI veteran, who he believes could be his father. But his surprise turns to horror when he learns that Jimmy was involved in the death of both Patton and the boy. Did he kill General George Patton, one of the greatest Generals of the twentieth century? Did he kill an orphaned German boy at the end of World War Two? If the answer to any or all of these questions is Yes! how will Chris cope with the rest of his life? A confrontation creates further tragedy for Chris, for Jimmy, and for Walt - the man who had saved Jimmy’s life! Chris panics and retreats back to Britain, trying to forget the incident he caused in San Francisco. Although appearing to lead a mundane and respectable life, for years he is tormented by guilt. He still hopes to find his hero, a guide to some kind of inner peace. And then Walt re-enters his life bringing with him a new bridge!    Excerpt Prologue On December 9, 1945, General George S Patton was on a trip to hunt pheasants near Mannheim. It was a frosty morning and there may have been some ice on the road. His Model 75 Cadillac was driven by Horace Woodring. At about 11:45 am the Cadillac was in collision with a two and a half ton GMC truck making a left turn. Although the Cadillac hit the truck at low speed the General was caused to impact on the metal partition between the front and back seats. The blow caused severe cervical spinal cord injury and he was rushed to hospital in Heidelberg, where quadriplegia was diagnosed. The general’s death certificate said he died of pulmonary embolism on December 21. His funeral was held at Christus Kirche in Heidelberg-Sudstadt. *** Summer, 1975. Why the hell did I agree to see that Limey SOB? ... Does he know something about the accident? ... I must be crazy! ... Jeez! Jimmy Lucas lit up a cigarette, walked across his first floor apartment and picked up his World War Two medals for the fifth time that morning. Gazing at the two medals that caused his heart to swell, wiping his forefinger lovingly across them, his vision blurred and moved through the medals, taking his presence first to Sicily 1943 and then on to Ardennes 1944. He tried to swallow the amorphous mass that crept from his heart to his throat as memories of comrades and events from those years crowded for a place in his consciousness. ...One day, one day, one day... Once again Jimmy carefully put down the lumps of metal, as he would delicate porcelain, onto the highly polished side table. Unconsciously, he once again lightly stroked the medal ribbons with his fingertips; ribbons of red, white, blue, black and gold. Once again he sighed. He removed his hated reading glasses from his nose, polished the lenses with a sparkling white handkerchief, and returned them to the drawer in the side table. This mirrored wood sat beside his favourite armchair where he settled for all of twenty five seconds, before rising for the tenth time and walking to the window. He looked out onto the deserted Concord street. What the hell was I thinking? Jeez! I must be crazy! Who is this Limey SOB? ... Says he writes for the BBC... The Brits ain't the same no more... They had pride in the war... Now they got nothin'... Had an empire for Chrissake! ... This commonwealth crap don't count... Bet he's late... They're always late the Brits... Like they still owned half the world... Jeez! We won the war for 'em! Sunset Avenue looked pristine in the late morning sunlight. The shadows were short and the heat haze lazy and long. No vehicles; no people; not even a stray dog to litter the street. It was the end of April and already the garden sprinklers were needed. As he dreamily observed the recurrent rainbow in the rotating sprays of the sprinkler across the street, Jimmy felt grateful for the cool air that issued from the air conditioning grid on the adjacent wall; then guilt. 'Sgonna be a scorcher... Gettin' soft these days... Just mud in the war! Mud, mud, mud! He picked up the framed photograph of a group of US marines and stared through the black and white images for a few seconds. He could smell the oil fumes and the smoke of burning buildings; and he could hear the sounds of that day, just three decades ago; tanks and trucks being loaded up and heading west to the outskirts of Mannheim. His younger self smiled back at him from the group and Jimmy proudly approved of this militarily smart marine. Despite all of the mud and rain and cold of that Bavarian winter he had maintained the standards expected of a US marine. To this day he still sported a neatly clipped pencil moustache and a slightly gelled, combed-straight-back short hairstyle. Back then he’d used brilliantine on his hair in an effort to emulate the Brylcreem-boys of the RAF, who he had admired so much when he was stationed in the UK. It had cost him a lot of cigarettes and contraband to get his hair cut properly at the end of the war. But it was worth it - his standards were what kept him going through the chaos and terror and death, through the last few days of war madness, through his life afterwards - through the last few years. And didn't it just show in the other photograph that he now held. Blowing away a speck of dust that only Jimmy could see, from the edge of the frame he stared fondly at the picture of General George S. Patton and himself. The general had one arm around the shoulder of Jimmy's best comrade-in-arms, Walt Sheppard, and the other around Jimmy Lucas. The sun had shone briefly on that cold December day; shone long enough for a decent photograph and thirty years later all three soldiers gleamed at him with military precision and smartness, from out of the black and white bleakness. Course that was before... Before the accident ... Before Fritz was killed... Before OBAG... and the Cadillac... and... A tear fell to the carpet, after bouncing off the edge of the photo frame and surprising Jimmy out of his nostalgic musings. He sniffed, blinked away a second tear and murmured, “What a loss. What a loss to the country. What a loss to the world.” Returning the photographs to their place on the side table next to the medals he straightened up and glanced in the mirror to check his appearance again. Yup - he was still the same upright, immaculate guy in the photographs - OK a lot greyer round the temples and with a few wrinkles across his forehead, and around his mouth and eyes - life experiences. But the grey-green eyes still stared fiercely back at him, challenging, causing those who met him to pause and think, “Does this man know me? Does he know something about me? Have I done something wrong? Why do I feel like this?” Jimmy Lucas lit up another cigarette.

This Author is Rising not Falling

By graham bean Format: Paperback
Fallen Hero

The overview on the rear cover of "Fallen Hero" by GJ Griffiths tells the reader that 'Chris Squires is a confused man constantly seeking a hero father-figure'... well, he is, but he does succeed in his quest in a book which flows seamlessly through time, developing the principle character from a buoyant, inquisitive youngster via a mischief-ridden adolescence to a well-qualified business man with an affectionate, highly-balanced family.

Well researched, for some early chapters will evoke memories of the near poverty-stricken post-war society, for others they will make us realise `that we never had it so good'. Griffiths uses his technical know-how to good effect illustrating the technological world of photography in which Squires is professionally immersed, then his imagination, to project into the developing communication systems of the late 2010s.

Something intrigues me about a novel where fiction and historical fact meet - a la Jack Higgins, perhaps - the two are certainly intertwined here, enabling the author to create a sense of uncertainty as to how the great American leader, General Patton met his final demise. Unlike Higgins there is little `rough and tumble' or thuggery to establish as to who is top dog, nor, blessingly so, is the plot `moved on' by the intervention of the ringing tone of a mobile phone.

Variety of scene - the rough seas encountered on the ferry journey across the Irish Sea as Squires travels back to Liverpool from holidaying in the Isle of Man to the peaceful reverence of the Hamm War Memorial in Luxembourg - and essential changes of location - downtown San Francisco with its hustle and bustle to a peaceful day trip in the rolling hills of North Wales - all blend together to make this, the author's debut novel, highly readable.

I certainly recommend this book, indeed, I trust the author does not rest on his laurels and is now working on his next novel......in his heyday, Jack Higgins managed to write at least gripping tale a year!!

A Read for War Fantasy Lovers!, June 20, 2013
By g'elle
Fallen Hero (Kindle Edition)

A young boy found out he was adopted, and he decided to seek out his birth parents when he became a grown man. He found his mother wasn't so keen on developing a relationship with him, and that his father was a WWII war veteran.

The fallen hero is mainly about the aftermath of the encounter between the main character and his birth father, and the mediating influence of his father's friend, in helping him reconcile his expectations of a war hero with reality.

A well composed novel. I almost believed its version of the death of the general. The emotions of the characters in the story were deftly handled, such that the reader empathized with their sorrows. A read for war fantasy lovers.


Searching for a Hero
By S. Hines on February 5, 2016
Kindle Edition

Was General George Patton a hero to all—or did he make enemies who caused his death? Fallen Hero explores the nature of heroism and how choices affect a man’s life.

The story unfolds through the eyes of an English boy born as World War II ends. Young Christopher Squires can easily tell right from wrong. There’s a wrongness to his family; he doesn’t fit in. His father is not the hero he desires.

When adolescent Chris discovers he’s adopted, he begins a lifelong quest to learn what he’s destined to become. His birth parents, he thinks, have the answers. Before he can find them, he grows up, starts his career, forms a family—makes his own life choices. Right and wrong are no longer so clear. The crucial meeting with his father, an American GI who served under General Patton, provides more questions than answers but leads, eventually, to the father Chris always wanted.

Fallen Hero has strong characterization. Dialogue is natural and realistic. We feel for Chris as he wrestles with the issues in his life, and we rejoice with him when he discovers no one is entirely hero or villain, that being a man means making both good and bad decisions, that life is always a work in process.