76 Hours: A Novel of Tarawa

WWII historian Alexander (A Higher Call) makes his fiction debut with a rote take on the invasion of Tarawa Atoll. Pvt. Pete “Hardball” Talbot, three months out of basic training, hits the beach with his Marine unit and immediately comes under fire. The reader also meets two of the atoll’s Japanese defenders, Leading Seaman Kenji Sakai and his friend, Chief Petty Officer Tadao Onuki. Of course, Pete and Kenji take notice of one another amid the chaos of battle, one of the many cliches that this story traffics in. Pete’s squad is full of stereotypical characters—the sharp-shooting Southerner, the tough-as-nails gunnery sergeant, the intellectual college boy whom the others call “Professor”—and Pete’s transformation from lone wolf to team leader is rather obviously dramatized. But Alexander deserves credit for investing in the Japanese soldiers’ points of view, driving home the point that, in war, no side has a monopoly on heroism or barbarism. Readers of old-fashioned war novels will appreciate this. Agent: Doug Grad, Doug Grad Literary. (Mar.)

This review has been updated to note it is the author's first work of fiction.