Four Americans—a twenty-year-old social outcast, a breezily iconoclastic Army officer, a ruthless US senator, and a guilt-ridden heiress—are inexorably drawn together in their struggles to deal with America's chaotic involvement in World War I. Their interwoven destinies lead from poverty-stricken slums through the opulence of 1917–1918 Washington, London, and Paris and, climactically, into the Western Front's vicious aerial combat, which establishes the matrix for all air warfare to come.
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"A US Air Force friend of mine loved this book. Definitely a 5 star read to him. So I'm putting it on my To Read shelf, but going with the 5 stars since he loved it so. :)"
— Susanne (5 out of 5 stars)
“There’s exciting action in the air, to be sure, but Paul Michael Garcia concentrates on the character drama, evolving the voice of John King from that of a thoughtful youth to that of a tortured soul as the war takes its toll on his mind and spirit. Garcia also makes real the corruption and sadness surrounding the wealthy and powerful people who enter King’s life as he becomes a hero. Garcia draws listeners into King’s tragic life and sets them up for a powerful ending.”
— AudioFile“What the jacket doesn’t convey is Hunter’s easy strength of description, evocation of time and place and creation of characters you’ll care about. It’s hard to believe Hunter wasn’t there at the time of this WWI-era book. His ability to draw the pre-war America and its treatment of its own German citizens is a miracle of succinctness. Hunter has a gift for easy storytelling that engages the reader and lets you feel like you know these settings and these people. It’s a rare art.”
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Jack D. Hunter (1921–2009) often based his novels on his experiences as a US counterintelligence agent in World War II. The Blue Max was made into a motion picture, and The Expendable Spy was awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, and Bewilderment was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.