[ Civil War Books ] [ Dana Fuller Ross ] [ Death Head Crossing ] [ Draw ] [ Dust Devils ] [ Old Times' Sake ] [ World War II ]

THE LAST GOOD WAR

BATTLE LINES It was known as the last good war. A conflict that engulfed the world and changed forever the lives of those who fought it. World War II separated families and lovers alike as millions of young men and women went off to fight for their country and freedom. Now three men and one woman, bonded by family, friendship, and love, are about to experience firsthand the terror and glory of the Second World War.

They're young, just barely old enough to be starting out on their lives as adults, living outside Chicago. Joe and Dale Parker are brothers, but you'd never know it. Dale's best friend, Adam Bergman, is Jewish, but Adam's girlfriend, Catherine Tancred, has German-born parents who don't know that or the war in Europe wouldn't be the only fighting going on. For now the war is a growing storm cloud on the horizon that hasn't really affected any of them-yet. Things like dating, college, racing fast cars, and friendship are what their lives are about. Until Dale meets a girl who takes his breath away and makes him forget everyone and everything else. She's everything he's ever dreamed about and she seems to feel the same way about him. Then her very jealous, powerfully connected husband finds out about their affair and promises to get his revenge.

Suddenly Chicago seems like a very small, dangerous place, and the excitement of fighting against the Axis powers becomes very attractive. So Dale enlists-leaving his intoxicating but married lady to her husband-and so do his brother, Adam, and Catherine. With Joe and Dale in the Army, Adam in the Marines, and Catherine in the Navy's Nurse Service, the four friends realize for the first time that they might soon be sent to different theaters of war. What was an exciting and liberating idea-fighting for freedom in faraway places-now threatens to break them up, perhaps never to see one another again. They're right on the battle lines, their fates out of their hands, heading for a collision with history on December 7,1941....A FORGE HARDCOVER, May 2001

"In many ways, Battle Lines reminded me very strongly of Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance opus.    Believable people doing believable things in unbelievable buy very real times, making for one hell of a read.  Thanks!                                                                           -DAVID HAGBERG

BOOK 2: TRIAL BY FIRE

Vivid storytelling set against historically accurate action brings WWII up close and personal, in a memorable novel of American lives in the maelstrom of the twentieth century's greatest war.

Joe and Dale Parker are young Americans stationed with the British tank force, with the job of teaching British soldiers how to operate their American-made tanks. When the tank force, led by Field Marshal Montgomery, is sent to fight Rommel in North Africa, Joe and Dale are carried into the thick of battle. At the same time Adam and Catherine Bergman are in the Pacific. Catherine, whose brother died in her arms after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, is on a hospital ship that sees heavy action in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Adam, a marine, left Wake Island just before the Japanese attack on it and is now on the frontlines of the Battle for the Midway.   A FORGE HARDCOVER March 2002

BOOK 3: ZERO HOUR

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, to wartime struggles on the home front, and into hospitals on ships and in temporary quarters near the fronts.  A FORGE HARDCOVER, April 2003

"The author's treatment of such big issues as love, duty, and racism is intelligent and compassionate."
                                                                                                                   -Booklist

Unfortunately Forge canceled this series and there wasn't a 4th book.