Ben Blum. (2017). Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Ben Blum. 2017. Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime. Books on Tape.

Ben Blum, Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime. Books on Tape, 2017.

Ben Blum. Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2017.

OverDrive Product Record

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Ranger Games

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Ranger Games A Story of Soldiers Family and an Inexplicable Crime

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A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime

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   • bioText: BEN BLUM was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of California Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and an MFA in fiction from New York University, where he was awarded the New York Times Foundation Fellowship. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and stepdaughter.
   • name: Ben Blum
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2017-09-12T00:00:00-04:00

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title

Ranger Games

fullDescription

"A gloriously good writer...Ranger Games is both surprising and moving...A memorable, novelistic account."—Jennifer Senior, New York Times 
Intricate, heartrending, and morally urgent, Ranger Games is a crime story like no other
 
Alex Blum was a good kid, a popular high school hockey star from a tight-knit Colorado family. He had one goal in life: endure a brutally difficult selection program, become a U.S. Army Ranger, and fight terrorists for his country. He poured everything into achieving his dream. In the first hours of his final leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex was supposed to fly home to see his family and beloved girlfriend. Instead, he got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery... 
     The question that haunted the entire Blum family was:  Why?  Why would he ruin his life in such a spectacularly foolish way?
     At first, Alex insisted he thought the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger program.  His attorney presented a case based on the theory that the Ranger indoctrination mirrored that of a cult. 
     In the midst of his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben Blum, Alex’s first cousin, delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process.  As he probed further, Ben began to question not only Alex, but the influence of his superior, Luke Elliot Sommer, the man who planned the robbery. A charismatic combat veteran, Sommer’s manipulative tendencies combined with a magnetic personality pulled Ben into a relationship that put his loyalties to the test.      

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1. • value: Grade 8
2. • value: Grade 9

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: What would incite an Army Ranger with a spotless record and boundless potential to rob a bank and throw his career away? That's the question Ben Blum sets out to answer in this outstanding piece of personal journalism about his cousin Alex, who committed this inexplicable crime. Narrator Johnathan McClain's pacing is ideal. He carries the narrative briskly along, using more intensity when needed but without slipping into melodrama. He provides subtle vocal shifts for the various characters, including a passable Canadian accent for Blum's partner in crime, a British Columbiaborn Ranger who incited the robbery. Ultimately, Blum is unable to provide definitive answers, but he asks challenging questions about the way elite soldiers are trained. D.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from May 29, 2017
     This engrossing true-crime saga follows a twisting labyrinth of confused and suspect motivations. In 2006 Blum’s cousin Alex Blum, a straight-arrow 19-year-old in an elite Army Ranger battalion, was the getaway driver in an armed robbery of a Tacoma bank involving four accomplices, one of whom was a higher-ranking Ranger named Luke Elliott Sommer. Alex’s arrest shocked his family, as did his unlikely excuse: he thought the robbery was a special-ops training exercise he had to participate in. Trying to make sense of this, Blum embarked on a years-long quest to suss out the factors that shaped Alex’s actions: his adulation of the military; the sadistic Ranger training regimen that turned recruits into obedient killers (in 2010 Alex went on Dr. Phil as a poster boy for psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s theory of “coercive social influence” in military culture); and the malign authority of Sommer, a charismatic but troubled man whose schemes embodied Ranger machismo and who gets a fascinating profile from the author. In a triumph of subtle reportage, Blum sleuths through the mind games enshrouding the heist while painting sympathetic but clear-eyed portraits of its perpetrators; the result is an unsettling dissection of the moral corruptions, small and great, that bedevil the culture of military honor. Agent: Tina Bennett, Janklow & Nesbit.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     November 27, 2017
     Voice actor McClain briskly recounts the story of Alex Blum, a straight-arrow 19-year-old who joined the army out of high school and participated in an armed bank robbery with two fellow soldiers days before he was set deploy to Iraq. The book, written by his cousin Ben, attempts to unravel the confused and suspect motivations behind Blum’s uncharacteristic actions, and the several conflicting explanations for his involvement in the crime proffered by his defense lawyers, Blum and his co-conspirators, and his family. Is he a victim of brainwashing? Did he really believe the heist was an organized army simulation? Was he just acting out? Narrator McClain does a terrific job of guiding listeners through this complex story as attitudes toward Alex shift. He vividly captures the book’s watershed moment, Alex’s appearance on the Dr. Phil show, nailing the emotional weight of the scene and the show host’s folksy aphorisms. The book’s narrative arc makes it well suited for the audio format, and McClain is more than competent. A Doubleday hardcover.

popularity

465

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1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
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"A gloriously good writer...Ranger Games is both surprising and moving...A memorable, novelistic account."—Jennifer Senior, New York Times 
Intricate, heartrending, and morally urgent, Ranger Games is a crime story like no other
 
Alex Blum was a good kid, a popular high school hockey star from a tight-knit Colorado family. He had one goal in life: endure a brutally difficult selection program, become a U.S. Army Ranger, and fight terrorists for his country. He poured everything into achieving his dream. In the first hours of his final leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex was supposed to fly home to see his family and beloved girlfriend. Instead, he got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery... 
     The question that haunted the entire Blum family was:  Why?  Why would he...

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   • description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
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   • description: True Crime / Hoaxes & Deceptions