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A review by komet2020
We'll Meet Again by Bartle Bull
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
WE'LL MEET AGAIN brings back many of the principal characters from The Devil's Oasis. Yet it is an epic novel that, upon reading it, has 2 parallel stories in which the author seeks to have the reader believe, are set in the same time period. One story is firmly centered on the latter stages of the North African campaign, spanning from the Anglo-American invasion of Algeria in French North Africa in November 1942 to the battles in Tunisia in early 1943 that brought closure to the campaign. The other story concerns Anton Rider and the experiences he had in Yugoslavia, where he had been parachuted in with 2 other soldiers to join up with Marshal Tito's partisans in the mountains and support them in their fight against the Germans and their Ustashe allies. Rider's time in Yugoslavia seems to have taken place later in the fall of 1943 after the conclusion of the North African campaign. And yet, the author places both that campaign and Rider's stint in Yugoslavia as taking place concurrently, which doesn't make any sense.
Prior to taking on the assignment in Yugoslavia, the extent of Rider's wounds from his stint with the Long Range Desert Group precluded him from further combat. That was something Rider, by now in his early 40s, did not want to accept. He pestered his superiors for a combat assignment and in that assignment was trained by Alistair Treitel, a British intelligence officer (in his civilian life, Treitel had been a professor of archeology and an Egyptologist). Treitel, a vain, greedy, and insecure man, had made the acquaintance of Rider's estranged wife and was in a relationship with her. He felt himself to be in competition with Rider and once he was in Yugoslavia, sought to ensure that this would be Rider's last mission, from which he would not return.
While We'll Meet Again embodies much of the elements that made the other novels in the series interesting and engaging, the editing in certain sections was shoddy, detracting from the novel's robustness. (There was also the insertion of a character who had been killed off in a previous novel in the series.) Simply put, I didn't enjoy this book as I did the others. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have read it. I will be donating it to my local used bookstore.
Prior to taking on the assignment in Yugoslavia, the extent of Rider's wounds from his stint with the Long Range Desert Group precluded him from further combat. That was something Rider, by now in his early 40s, did not want to accept. He pestered his superiors for a combat assignment and in that assignment was trained by Alistair Treitel, a British intelligence officer (in his civilian life, Treitel had been a professor of archeology and an Egyptologist). Treitel, a vain, greedy, and insecure man, had made the acquaintance of Rider's estranged wife and was in a relationship with her. He felt himself to be in competition with Rider and once he was in Yugoslavia, sought to ensure that this would be Rider's last mission, from which he would not return.
While We'll Meet Again embodies much of the elements that made the other novels in the series interesting and engaging, the editing in certain sections was shoddy, detracting from the novel's robustness. (There was also the insertion of a character who had been killed off in a previous novel in the series.) Simply put, I didn't enjoy this book as I did the others. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have read it. I will be donating it to my local used bookstore.