From Publishers Weekly
Beginning on the eve of Pearl Harbor, this second volume of Reasoner's WWII epic follows a group of childhood friends who fight for their country in far-flung theaters of war. Adam, a marine, and his navy nurse wife, Catherine, are stationed in the Pacific; GI brothers Joe and Dale serve as tank force advisers to the British in the deserts of North Africa. A handful of other holdovers from the first volume, Battle Lines, and new characters like navy pilot Phil and nurse Missy promise to keep things moving through the next installment. Keeping everyone straight can be a bit of a problem, because almost all are young, na‹ve, sterling athletes, gung ho, true blue and darned good looking the soap-opera plot seems to exist mostly to paste the war story together. Readers launching into the novel will quickly qualify for combat pay as they do battle with wooden dialogue, flat characters and repetitive, pedestrian prose. If that's not daunting enough, the multiple plot lines are unbalanced and points of view shift capriciously as the novel lurches toward the climactic Battle of Midway. Reasoner's talent does emerge often enough to underscore the book's unrealized potential. He definitely knows his history and can write a good combat scene; with some editorial guidance, this could have been a fascinating, big canvas novel on the order of those of James Jones or Herman Wouk. As it stands, however, the book fails to improve on its equally weak predecessor.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The second installment of Reasoner's Last Good War
series continues the saga of four young American friends inexorably swept up in wartime drama and romance. Retracing World War II on two fronts, Reasoner positions the scrappy Parker brothers in North Africa, where Joe and Dale assist a British tank unit in the fight against General Rommel's legendary Afrika Korps. Meanwhile, marine corporal Adam Bergman and his beloved bride, Catherine, a combat nurse, see action on Wake Island, the Coral Sea, and at the Battle of Midway. Though definitely on the hokey side, this World War II melodrama successfully capitalizes on the current media obsession with the "Greatest Generation." Recommended for readers who can't resist predictable historical fiction loaded with action and populated by a cast of unambiguous heroes and villains.
Margaret FlanaganCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
