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"They huddled in the chill, encased in hard steel, waiting, energized by rumors. Behind them, to the east, the black horizon was visible, silhouetted by the first glow of sunrise. The wireless radio was chattering, the voices of nervous officers far behind the line, the men in tents, who pored over maps, unsure, powerless to do anything about an enemy who might be anywhere at all." Jeff Shaara, master of historical war fiction, continues to earn accolades with The Rising Tide. I have read Shaara's Civil War series (his father wrote the pulitzer prize winning The Killer Angels, and son Jeff finished the trilogy). This latest series on the events of World War II is every bit as good. Since Shaara likes to take a broad sweep at the larger events that contributed to the outcome of the war, I'm very impressed that he is able to put it in a very readable, edge of your seat kind of way. Obviously, World War II is a huge subject. Shaara smartly focuses on the allied invasion of North Africa in this first book of the trilogy. Each chapter tells part of the story from the point of view of the major commanders - Rommel, Montgomery, Clark, Eisenhower and Patton; and also from two minor soldiers - Private Jack Logan and Sergeant Jesse Adams. This balance gives the reader a good sense of the strategies and improvisations that occurred, without losing the intimacy that connects a good story with its reader. While reading the The Rising Tide, I watched the movie Patton (the first half lines up perfectly with this novel) and I also watched the first two episodes of The War. Revisiting the excellent Ken Burns documentary also helped to solidify in my mind the events that were happening in this book. I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in this trilogy and also to Jeff Shaara's upcoming book, The Final Storm, the fourth and final volume in this World War II series.

2022-11-14 16:10