THE FAR REACHES
Homer Hickam
St. Martin’s Griffin
Historical Fiction
Hardcover: 0312334753
Paperback: 9780312383053

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Captain Josh Thurlow is back in a new World War II adventure, packed with action and pathos. Fans will remember the feisty U.S. Coast Guard Captain from two previous books. We first met Josh in THE KEEPER'S SON as he hunted a wolfpack of German U-boats off the Outer Banks of the Carolinas before the U.S. entered the war. In THE AMBASSADOR'S SON, Josh and his crew were sent to the Solomon Islands on a secret mission to search for President Roosevelt’s missing cousin early in the war.

Captain Thurlow’s sea-savvy has been duly noted by Washington after his action in the Solomons, and he is dispatched to the Mariana Islands as an observer for Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. The Americans had met blistering resistance from the Japanese in the bloody battle of Guadalcanal, and now the U.S. seeks to secure the island chain to the east as a strategic stopping point in the supply lines as they gear up for invasion of Japan. Late in 1943 the Marines are launching an assault of Tarawa.

Hickam’s earlier war stories have leaned toward storytelling and character development in the early pages. Not so in THE FAR REACHES. The opening chapters are filled with graphic, action-filled battle scenes, as his impressive writing skills chronicle a near-catastrophic battle early in World War II. Based on recorded history of that battle, THE FAR REACHES aims a zoom lens on the fighting men from both sides in what began as a fiasco as the Marines tried to land under poor sea conditions. It is here that Hickam injects his rich and colorful characters into the story.

Captain Thurlow, horrified at the carnage taking place during the misguided landing, discards his observer role to jump ship and join the battle.

Meanwhile, Sister Mary Kathleen, a pretty, young Irish nun and her retinue of “fella boys,” a group of South Sea Islanders fleeing a prisoner-of-war camp on a Japanese occupied island, have had the misfortune of being recaptured by the Japanese holding Tarawa. They are sequestered in a bunker under guard beneath the dunes of the small atoll and due to be executed. When the pounding begins from the American warships offshore, their future is even less certain as shells fall on the bunker.

During a lull in the bombardment, the nun and her fella boys crawl out of the smoldering ruins to give aid to the few wounded Marines still alive after the first unsuccessful beach assault. Among them are Josh and his bosun, Ready. Josh, gravely wounded during the landing, succumbs to a recurrence of malaria and is shanghaied by Sister Mary Kathleen, who has a war of her own to win back on the island she fled.

As the second wave of the 2nd Marines is gathering for what will be a successful battle for the island chain, the unconscious Josh, his bosun Ready, the determined young nun and three surviving Marines are being rowed in three reed outrigger canoes by the nun’s faithful fella boys back to the island group known as the Forriges, or the Far Reaches, to help Sister Mary Kathleen exact her revenge on her brutal captor.

Members of the crew find love, honor and insights into their own human spirit as they go from hand-to-hand fighting on the brutal beaches of Tarawa to an idyllic existence on an outlying island. There, they finally confront the cruel Japanese warlord and the lives of each are changed forever.

Hickam’s hero is strong, filled with zeal and brave in the face of overwhelming odds as all heroes must be. His past books have been laced with humor and hijnks by Josh and his unlikely band of sailors, but THE FAR REACHES is dead serious and strikes a darker note. The war has hardened Josh and the games are over. The curmudgeonly Captain frightens strangers but doesn’t fool his trusted friends. His tough crust still surrounds a tender core for the men and women who are loyal and true.

   --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

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