Line of Fire by W.E.B. Griffin

The Corps 5 Line of Fire by W.E.B. Griffin

The first two-thirds of this novel is filled with Griffin’s characteristic behind the scenes maneuvering—some of it in Washington, some of it on Guadalcanal, and some of it in Australia, and all of it is exciting. The book checks in with most of the large cast of characters. General Pickering is in Washington with malaria and his absence leaves his team in Australia unprotected from officers more interested in advancing their careers than the mission. His son, Pick, arrives on Guadalcanal where he joins the now familiar group of pilots fighting to keep the Japanese from retaking the island and with it quite possibly winning the war in the Pacific. And the two marine Coast Watchers, each sick with half a dozen tropical diseases, get weaker and weaker as they come to accept that their superiors in the corps have written them off. Unfortunately, this is true. Their replacements are being trained, but no effort is being made to create a plan of extraction.

 

The scene where that changes is one of the most moving in the series this far. Recently returned from Guadalcanal and sick with malaria, Reserve General Pickering asks a simple question—when did they kick those two young men in the Coast Watchers out of the corps? His deputy gets angry at him, but the question stands because, as Pickering was taught when he enlisted in the corps for World War I, marines don’t leave their wounded behind and Pickering is wholly determined to bring those two young men home again.

 

Enter Lieutenant Ken “Killer” McCoy, veteran of the first Marine Raiders mission and star of the opening novel in the series. McCoy gets the job of planning the rescue mission—and overcoming tremendous obstacles including the hostility of superior officers. This leads to unusually granular action-writing for Griffin as the reader is taken not just through the planning but through the mission itself to see if the corps really can rescue its men.