Last Good War

It is 1941, and friends Adam, Joe, Dale, and Catherine are similar to most young adults. College, dating, and fast cars are what they know and live for. And, in Chicago, Illinois, the near center of America, world conflict seems merely a distant rumor. But, as turmoil in Europe develops into full-scale war, Chicago suddenly abounds with talk of America's entering the fight. Drawn by the promise of freedom and the allure of battle, Joe and Dale join the Army, Adam the Marines, and Catherine the Naval Nurse Service. Far away from home and facing the reality of war in all its horror, they find the world a frighteningly big and unforgiving place, and what began as a quest for freedom becomes a battle to stay alive in one of the bloodiest wars of the twentieth century.

December 7, 1941 "A day that will live in infamy," is how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. With a devastating stroke, World War II was no longer a strictly European war; it was now our war, too. In this powerful, exciting sequel to Battle Lines, James Reasoner shows us the fight through four friends cast into the chaos of the war that reshaped the twentieth century. As the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, they simultaneously launch an assault on Wake Island, where Adam Bergman is one of the marines working feverishly to complete the installation of an airstrip. He is unaware of the Pearl Harbor disaster that sends hundreds of casualties streaming into the hospital on the United States Naval Base, where his wife, Nurse Catherine Tancred of the Naval Medical Corps, is one of dozens ministering to the wounded and dying. While Adam and Catherine are immersed in the Pacific war effort, their friends Joe and Dale Parker are stationed with British tank divisions that are fighting the Germans for control of North Africa. Joe and Dale are only supposed to advise their British allies, but before long, Dale is manning a tank to help stem the tide of battle, and Joe is working directly with British intelligence in Cairo. Upon entering World War II, Americans fought to defend freedom around the world. Through the eyes of those in battle, we share their struggles and hardships in this memorable story of Americans at war.

November 1942. In the Pacific with the U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal, and in North Africa with the British Armored Tank Command, James Reasoner puts readers into the thick of the most deadly action of World War II. The British Tank Command has been fighting an uphill battle with Rommel's Panzers. Brothers Joe and Dale Parker, detailed from the U.S. Army to help the British tankers, find themselves helping to turn the tide against the Desert Fox. Meanwhile, their friend Adam Bergman is in the Solomon Islands with the marines, as the U.S. starts the bloody fight to reclaim the Pacific. Reasoner takes us into the heart of the fight in both theaters of war, and to wartime struggles on the home front, and in hospitals on ships and in temporary quarters near the fronts. The immediacy of his prose and the urgency of his story convey a passion and conviction that will stir the blood of anyone who cares about freedom and wants to understand its price.