A Review By Keith Smith

It’s Italy, near Cassino. The terrible winter of 1944. A dismal icy rain falls, unabated, for days.
Three American soldiers set out on the gruelling ascent of a perilous Italian mountainside in the murky closing days of the Second World War. Haunted by their sergeant’s cold-blooded murder of a young girl, and with only an old man of uncertain loyalties as their guide, they trudge on in a state of barely suppressed terror and confusion. With snipers lying in wait for them, they are faced to confront their attitudes…to their sergeant’s action, to war, to themselves, to each other.

The book has had terrific reviews from critics who think it a small masterpiece. I am not so sure. It just didn’t do it for me. I thought the situation was not built up in any depth, the soldiers did not come alive, the moral choices were left hanging, and the whole thing was a bit shallow. Nor did I find it the page-turner that the critics did. Maybe it will sell without my recommendation!