Book excerpt: Matylda is a reporter/have-a-go hero. She gets into difficult situations and rides the wave of Lady Luck for way too long. She setup a team to accost a warlord in Africa and helped to save a boy kidnapped in the Middle East before setting out to help prevent some animal cruelty to Asiatic bears (known as bile bears) in the former North Vietnam, cruelty that is practiced in China as well as Indonesia. She is gutsy and relies on some very capable people she meets on the way, though she knew Herbert, her cameraman, since her university days. During all of this, she falls in love and starts a family with a dashing NCO that she met in Iraq. With their mission in Vietnam complete, they found themselves on a rather arduous journey homea journey that could so easily have been the end of her, but they battled through the rough water, and finally, they found home. They realized that their turn on the wave of Lady Luck was over. Now they had to be good parents, and they were ready for it.