The Best of Chuck Klein...... Is very good indeedHis nostalgic tales of hot-rodding and high-schooling in the '50s are like riding in a cherry 1957 Corvette. Imagine cruising through your favorite old haunts - and nothing has changed. There's the patch of rubber you laid last weekend with your new Goodyears. The radio is playing all your favorite songs by the Everly Brothers and the Four Tops. That's it - a four-barrel, fuel injected time machine. You can almost smell the high-octane fuel, burning rubber and Brylcreem. That's Chuck Klein's writing. He has the gift to take you back to the bleachers of your teen years. But then there is the Chuck Klein that has flashing gumballs on the roof, a wailing siren and a police-pursuit big block V-8. The same guy who evaded the cops while street racing, eventually became one and saw the same picture from the other side of the frame. What's it like for a cop to roll in the dirt, trying to arrest a bigger, stronger man, lose his gun, get shot and shoot back? Klein tells us in gripping, gritty detailThere's another Chuck Klein in an unmarked car - a private detective. And there's the Chuck Klein today, who looks a lot like the old hot-rodder and drives a very nice old El Camino because anything new off the assembly line would be missing an important part - soulBut Chuck Klein is not a Corvette or a cop car. He's a man. By the old-school definition. A guy who can do things. Build a car. Race it. Fix it when it breaks. Take a wild and reckless risk and laugh about it later. Wear a gun. Handle it properly and use it if he has to. He has strong opinions about the way the world should work, based on experience and hard-earned knowledge, not flimsy feelings. All this makes him stand out in a traffic jam of men who are as about as exciting as the cars they drive that look like shiny new appliances with random numbers and letters on the side where it used to say Bel Air, Thunderbird or FuryThere are still plenty of men like that around. But their kind is endangered, like the old pre-muscle cars they used to drive and still love. And very few among that few can tell the story. Chuck Klein can write. He can make a story sing like tires on a wet highway. He can take you around a corner on two wheels, or just cruise slowly through a Big Boy parking lot, circa 1957Take a ride with him. You won't be sorry. from the Foreword, byPeter Bronson, former Cincinnati Enquirer columnist, now contributing editor for Cincy Magazine. March, 2013
About the Author: Chuck Klein: Author, Firearms Expert, Hot Rodder, Adventurer To come up with the selections for The Best of Chuck Klein the author had to wade through a collection of writing samples greater by far than that produced by the most proficient of writers. That's because Chuck Klein has lived a fuller life than most authors and those life experiences have produced volumes of adventures, opinions, reminiscences and astute observations that cry out to be compiled in a "best of" edition. Now a fulltime author, Klein is a retired licensed private investigator, a former certified police officer and firefighter, a firearms editor, street rod columnist, former staff instructor for the Tactical Defense Institute, Bill of Rights columnist, and security columnist. Klein built his own car at the age of 15 and can set-up and operate milling machines, metal working lathes and other machine tools. He earned a Bachelor of Laws in 1972 and has been listed in Who's Who in America for 13 years. He is a member and past president of Kiwanis Club of Cincinnati, an active member of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors. Author of The Best of Chuck Klein, his books include: The Badge, stories and tales from both sides of the law; Laws and Ideas; truths and observations; Guns in the Workplace, a manual for private sector employers and employees; The Power of God, a novel exposing a de facto hole in America's civil defense; Klein's CCW Handbook, a requisite for those carrying concealed handguns; The Way It Was, nostalgic tales of hot rods and romance; Klein's Uniform Firearms Policy, a manual for private detectives and security guards; Circa 1957, the coming of age in '57 - girls, cars, and rock and roll; Instinct Combat Shooting, defensive hand gunning for police; and Lines of Defense, police ideology and the constitution. Klein and wife Annette have five children and 10 grandchildren and live on a 125-acre farm in Brown County, Ohio, and in a row house in downtown Cincinnati.