Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of All Blood Runs Red by Phil Keith

All Blood Runs Red by Phil Keith

All Blood Runs Red

The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard-Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy

by Phil Keith

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Published:
  • Nov 2019, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

The incredible story of the first African American military pilot, who went on to become a Paris nightclub impresario, a spy in the French Resistance and an American civil rights pioneer.

Eugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of eleven to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African American fighter pilot in history.

After the war, Bullard returned to Paris a celebrated hero. But little did he know that the dramatic, globe-spanning arc of his life had just begun.

All Blood Runs Red is the inspiring untold story of an American hero, a thought-provoking chronicle of the twentieth century and a portrait of a man who came from nothing and by his own courage, determination, gumption, intelligence and luck forged a legendary life.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Keith vividly describes Bullard's experiences—including his medal-worthy military exploits, the luck that allowed him to cheat death repeatedly, and the bizarre parallels between his life and the movie Casablanca. This may be a biography, but it reads like a novel." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Terrific detective work revealing a man determined to forge his own destiny when his country said he couldn't." - Kirkus Reviews

"Phil Keith and Tom Clavin have resurrected the memory of a man who was larger than life; a man born to a former slave and a Native American mother in racially-hostile Georgia who refused to play the hand he was dealt, and lived life on his own terms. All Blood Runs Red should be required reading for anyone who has ever dreamed big. A truly inspiring and uplifting story of courage and triumph, and an opus for an unsung hero." - Nelson DeMille

"Eugene Bullard lived enough for a dozen interesting men, and All Blood Runs Red tells his story in a captivating way that keeps the pages turning for the next chapter. Keith and Clavin bring us a well-crafted book about a truly admirable American." - Gregory A. Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

"An incredible, meticulously researched, star-studded tale of the grandson of a slave, who broke nearly every barrier he encountered, becoming history's first African American fighter pilot, a storied boxer, a member of Parisian high society in the Jazz Age, a character in a Hemingway novel, a World War II spy, and a friend to the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Louis Armstrong. All Blood Runs Red is a true 'moveable feast' that will forever change the way you see 20th century history." - Kristin Harmel, international bestselling author of The Winemaker's Wife and The Room on Rue Amélie

This information about All Blood Runs Red was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Phil Keith

Phil Keith is the author of six books, including Blackhorse Riders, which won the 2012 USA Best Book Award for Military History, was a finalist for the 2013 Colby Award and earned a 2013 silver medal from the Military Writers Society of America. He holds a degree in history from Harvard and is a former navy aviator. During three tours in Vietnam, he served with distinction and was awarded, among other decorations, the Purple Heart, Air Medal, Presidential Unit Citation and the Navy Commendation Medal.

Tom Clavin is the author of eighteen nonfiction books and has worked as a newspaper and website editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and reporter for the New York Times covering entertainment, sports and the environment. His latest book, Dodge City, became an immediate New York Times bestseller. Three previous books have also been New York Times bestsellers: The Heart of Everything That Is, The Last Stand of Fox Company and Halsey's Typhoon.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more biography/memoir...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket
    Prophet Song
    by Paul Lynch
    Paul Lynch's 2023 Booker Prize–winning Prophet Song is a speedboat of a novel that hurtles...
  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
The Story Collector
by Evie Woods
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!
Who Said...

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.