The Regiment

The latest historical adventures from Nicole ( Sunset ) neatly summarizes international politics from 1895 to 1914, and if that occasionally slows the narrative it's a nice, easy-listening kind of history lesson. Murdoch Mackinder, scion of a great family in the annals of the (fictional) Royal Western Dragoon Guards, starts as a virginal Subaltern in the Boer War in 1899. After quickly showing his mettle, he becomes a Victoria Cross winner and we follow his steady rise to major in the opening battles of WW I. His career brings him into contact with characters actual (Generals French, Haig, Kitchener, King Edward) and fictional (a Boer maiden, an evil German, Murdoch's American wife Marylee). Disturbed by Kitchener's concentration camps in South Africa, Murdoch is also upright, loyal and brave, a thoroughly nice chap if not very zippy. His appearance as a crisp centarian in the prologue, dated 1983, vitiates some suspense but his story is told with smooth authenticity. (Dec.)