Basil's War
By Stephen Hunter
Release Date: May 4, 2021
Ebook Available from WV Reads!
3 Stars - A fun, quirky little WW2 thriller that was a pleasant surprise. My expectations weren't that high as I don't regularly read Hunter's new releases but suitable for his fans as well as new readers. This piece of historical fiction was easy to fly through and quite the quick ride.
This is quite the departure from Hunter's Swagger series, and it had been years since I'd read those novels. I was pleased to discover has quite a talent for historical fiction. And there's a lot of good humor about the craziness in the book. So if there's some technical defects a reader notices or detail out of place, it almost doesn't matter. Basil himself seems on every other page to silently say "if you can believe it". Comparisons to James Bond and even Indiana Jones aren't all that far off for his particular skill set and mission. Of course, I wouldn't quite say this womanizer and adrenaline junkie is exactly relatable but he's certainly entertaining.
In Basil's War, Hunter managed to work in a lot of true to life details. Oddly enough, a few so wild that don't actually add much realism. This is a quick book, and it was sort of refreshing to not get bogged down in details, particularly so for a WW2 era story. We had a nice balance of fact and fiction. And the pace was easy to keep up with throughout the story. Some of the dialouge was a bit too heavily British and antiquated for me, like maybe I missed some of the meaning here and there. This had a few little goofs too. Not on major plot lines that I noticed or have knowledge of historically speaking. But for example, Basil stops in a bathroom at one point, planning to discard some papers subtly and secretly. He thinks he doesn't have time to tear them up and flush them. But then he stops at the sink, splashes water on his face, and generally dallies for a minute. So why not tear up the papers? Some flaws aside, this was a pretty wild and sometimes weird mini thriller. It's sure to help pass the time on a plane or cold evening or a fill a vacation day.
(NS)
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