Anne Perry, At Some Disputed Barricade

At Some Disputed Barricade

Anne Perry

Ballantine, Mar 2007, $21.95

ISBN: 0345456580

In 1917, in the trenches in France, thousands die to move the front inches. Passchendaele is one of the worst of the hostilities as the British troops are losing lives and consequently hope. When their Commanding Officer dies, Major Northrup is called in to replace him, but it is the belief of the troops that he should not be in charge of such an ugly situation as he has no combat experience. He proves them right with bad decisions which lead to deaths and maiming of his soldiers as he rejects the advice of his experienced subordinate officers.

When Northrup is found dead, Chaplain Captain Joseph Reavley discovers that he was murdered by one of his own. The Major's father, General Northrup, demands justice while the captain wants to low key the mess knowing that internal violence could erupt if not carefully handled as everyone detested the deceased. However the general sets in motion events that could lead to eleven honorable soldiers shot by a firing squad and a mutiny on the line beyond that unless Joseph can find a legal way to find justice and avert a tragedy.

This is the third installment in Anne Perry's insightful WWI series in which the audience obtains a strong history lesson inside an exciting military whodunit. Readers will see the atrocities and horrors of trench warfare in which leaders sent men to their deaths to gain a few inches of land when the goal was as often successful as it was a suicidal stalemate. Good men were forced to do difficult things by a brass often comfortably entrenched in Paris, London, or Berlin while their soldiers were dying AT SOME DISPUTED BARRICADE.

Harriet Klausner