March to Other Worlds Day 13 Honor Bound by W.E.B. Griffin
March to Other Worlds Day 13 Honor Bound by W.E.B. Griffin
Sometimes the most interesting “other worlds” are right here on planet earth—in this case the country of Argentina during World War II. During the war, Argentina played a role similar to that of Berlin during the Cold War. As a neutral country favoring the Nazi regime, it was the focus of a great deal of clandestine activity during the war as it struggled to maintain its neutrality while both the Axis and the Allies maneuvered on its territory. This is the backdrop to W.E.B. Griffin’s Honor Bound series as he continues to explore the fascinating realm of intelligence work during World War II. The hero of this book is Cletus Frade, a marine aviator called home from Guadalcanal to take on a covert mission in Argentina to blow up a neutral vessel that is refueling Nazi submarines in Argentinian waters.
Clete is totally unqualified for this mission, as are the two men assigned to him. None have any training as spies and while one is an expert in demolitions, none of them really have a clue as to what they are doing. The one thing Clete might have going for him is that his father, Jorge Guillermo Frade, is one of the most important and influential men in Argentina. Unfortunately, Clete has never met him and everything he knows about the man (coming from his maternal grandfather) is that he is the SOB responsible for Clete’s mother’s death.
It's the slow development of the relationship between father and son that makes this such a powerful book. Griffin has never been particularly interested in “action” in the conventional sense. There are occasional spurts of it, but Griffin has always been much more concerned with the nuts and bolts about how missions are planned and information is gathered. In this novel, he gets to play with multiple cultures as well—Argentinian, German, Nazi (yes, I know those last two should be the same but Griffin paints them differently), and American. It all blends together into a fascinating look at Argentina through the eyes of an outsider at a critical moment in its history.
The mission to destroy that tanker is the heart of the story. To emphasize the danger, Griffin lets the reader know that the previous team sent on this mission has simply disappeared. Clete’s mission is opposed by both the Argentinians and the Nazis, but also by elements within the American Office of Strategic Services who believe that Clete would be of better use to them if he were dead by German hands. They figure that his father would be more likely to help the Allies if he had a personal reason to hate the Nazis.
This is a wonderful and exciting book. I read it the first time roughly twenty years ago and enjoyed it just as much on this latest reading. Yet, I want to stress that it is not a typical military novel filled with battles and fights to the death. That sort of action is the exception here, not the rule. Truth is, Honor Bound doesn’t need it.
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