There is a lot of World War II literature. It is the nature of the game currently that they just sell better than most nonfiction, so the publishers pump them out. This is in and of itself is not a problem. There are plenty of stories from World War II which need to be told. The problem becomes that many authors don’t realize that they have a fantastic article but not a book.
Luckily, this is not a problem from Nicholas Reynolds and Katie Sanders in Ortiz’s War. It is the story of Peter Ortiz who was an absolute maniac in the best sense of the word. A kid from a rich family who decided school wasn’t for him. Instead, he joins the French Foreign Legion and begins a military career that will include numerous battles, captures, escape attempts, and episodes of bravery that verge on sheer insanity.
Reynolds and Sanders understand their assignment. This is a gateway book in that it gives the bare essentials about the wider war while keeping the focus on Ortiz. It’s another sign that the story isn’t there when the author tries to recap all of World War II instead of trusting the reader to know that Hitler is bad, D-Day was amazingly heroic, and getting captured by Germans is not ideal. The book clocks in just a whisper over 300 pages and doesn’t try to do too much. I wanted to read about a hero and his actions. It’s exactly what I got.
(This book was provided as a review copy by Harper Horizon.)
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