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  • Ranger Games

  • A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime
  • By: Ben Blum
  • Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
  • Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)
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Ranger Games cover art

Ranger Games

By: Ben Blum
Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
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Summary

A tense and layered true-crime story about an all-American soldier boy turned bank robber.

Alex Blum was a clean-cut all-American kid with one unshakeable goal in life: to serve his country in the military. He was accepted into the elite Rangers regiment, but on the first day of his leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma and committed armed robbery.

The Blum family was devastated and mystified. How could he have done such a thing?

Alex's attorney presented a defence based on the theory that trainee Rangers are indoctrinated on a level akin to the brainwashing in an extreme religious cult, and Alex insisted that he had believed the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger program. But Luke Elliot Sommer, the charismatic soldier behind the robbery, maintained that Alex knew exactly what he was doing, and had, in fact, planned it all with him.

Who was lying? What had happened to Alex during those gruelling months of training? How accountable was he?

©2017 Ben Blum (P)2017 Random House Audio
Military & War Organized Crime Social Psychology & Interactions Teenagers Relationships
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Critic reviews

"Ben Blum's achievement in this relentlessly gripping book is to make an incredible story entirely credible. If many of the serial revelations and twists are subtle and nuanced rather than spectacular that only adds to the sense of his narrative command and assurance." (Geoff Dyer)
"Ranger Games is a rare and totally original work of nonfiction. The odd characters and dangerous situations live vibrantly in these pages and the stakes are always high. Ben Blum's search for truth leads him down many paths into an inner turmoil and boil about family, fidelity, identity, good and evil, and military service. Once you start reading you won't put it down." (Anthony Swofford)
"Ranger Games is one of those rare books that illuminates its subject beyond what you thought possible - and then transcends its subject to become something more. In this case, the subject is engaging and disturbing all on its own; the 'inexplicable crime' of the title is fascinating, the fall-out from it is heart-breaking and suspenseful. But the book is not only about the crime or the family it tears apart, it is about the strange pathologies of North American culture, a particularly masculine form of madness, and the mysterious, timeless relationship of charm and evil." (Mary Gaitskill)

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Profile Image for Jackie

Brilliant...and beyond!

....i truly believe this book falls into that category at the top...an award winner. It is a story that so deeply reveals , in my heart, the definition of karma...of a mirror that slowly defogs, revealing truth in it's purest forms...that we are only human but that people who raise their kids with the core values of honesty, empathy, humor, love and that willingness to endure the pain and anger and hurt together, rather rhan apart will come thru in the end. I hope that Alex and Ben truly understand and feel their courage and the realization that they have shared the lessons that change is necessary for growth in a way that makes their story a true blessed gift for the reader....brilliant, Ben....a written masterpiece....thanks!

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