Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman, goes to France to live with an older business partner and his family and falls in love with the partner's younger wife. Stephen and Isabella run away together and later when she finds she is pregnant with his child runs out on him. When he can not locate her, he returns to England and when WWI breaks out enlists in an English regiment and goes back to France to fight the Germans. He becomes an officer in a Brigade that digs tunnels and listens for German movement beneath the earth. Stephen is a tortured soul and does not bond with his men nor feel their sadness when some of them are killed by the tunnels collapsing or being shot when the Germans come upon them in the tunnels.
The writing is such that you feel you are there fighting along side these men and experience all their horrors and agonizing deaths. The story stayed with me for quite awhile after reading it. As in any was the toll on human lives hits right to the core of all human emotions and failings.
I found the book to be very informative about the war and its effects, not only on the soldiers but on the civilian population in the war torn areas. The tactics of using tunnels to fight the enemy was very interesting.
Rated 4 out of 5
Reviewed by Joan Boucher
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