Seven Six One: A Novel of the Second World War

In the opening of this engrossing WW II novel set in Germany in 1945, the unarmed narrator and his tough, enigmatic first sergeant pull on rubber gloves and boots and enter the burned hulk of a U.S. tank to scrape up the remains of its crew to identify them for the medics. Shortly thereafter, the narrator witnesses the first sergeant execute a soldier who raped and disfigured a young woman in a nearby village. These two extraordinary undertakings are deemed necessary in fear that the dead soldiers might otherwise be ignored and that the rapist's crimes might be used to discredit their entire unit--the 761st tank battalion, comprised entirely of black soldiers who must fight not only the German enemy but the widely held expectation that they will fail under fire. Basing his story on the exploits of the actual 761st tankers, Borden ( Easter Day, 1941 ) writes of men at war on two fronts, conveying the racial implications in highly effective, understated prose. In meticulous and powerfully repetitive detail, he paints a gruesome picture of soldiers who understand that their actions have meaning far beyond the horrifying time and place in which they find themselves. This is a gripping, unforgettable novel. (Jan.)