An earnest but uninspired novel of three American veterans.
Freeland’s multigenerational, panoramic novel chronicles the wartime service of three brothers in the late 20th century.
In 1969, 2nd Lt. Alan McCormick, part of the 187th Infantry of the U.S. Army’s famed 101st Airborne Division, is stationed deep in Vietnam. The acting company commander’s principal task is to take control of Hill 937—a hilltop in the A Shau Valley that comes to be known as Hamburger Hill. The daily, horrific battle for it, as a dispirited Alan sees it, is a symbol of the war’s strategic and moral failures. Freeland’s third installment of a historical-fiction trilogy follows Alan’s plight during and after the war, including his frustration with the “disheartening, disappointing, and shameful” reception he gets from people who are critical of the war. His two younger brothers serve in combat roles, as well: Lee becomes a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Navy and flies many dangerous missions, including as part of Operation Desert Shield in the Middle East; and Scott, after serving in the Army along the DMZ in South Korea, embarks on a career as a CIA officer. Throughout, the eager patriotism of the brothers, who hail from a long line of American soldiers, is colored by disillusionment with the ways that the American government wages war. In terms that are both awkward and earnest—both hallmarks of the author’s prose style—Scott worries about the moral murkiness of the predicaments he might encounter: “What happens to me if what I believe to be right at the time and what others not present or involved in the action deem to be right after the fact do not agree?” Freeland’s command of aspects of military culture and the history of American warfighting is impressive. However, there’s nothing new or fresh in this war novel, which meanders in a manner that quickly becomes wearisome. Still, he does attempt to raise provocative questions about the American public’s perception of the military; when Lee returns from the Middle East, for instance, he’s hailed as a hero—a much different reception than the one Alan received.
An earnest but uninspired novel of three American veterans.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 9781954000407
Page Count: 394
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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