REVIEW: Dangers and Difficulties: A Novel of World War II (Breaking Point Series Book 5) by John Rhodes
1944. The Allies prepare for the largest military operation of World War II: the invasion of Normandy. Two German armies stand ready to hurl them back into the sea. As D-Day approaches, the balance of power in Europe teeters on a knife’s edge.
After undergoing grueling special forces training in preparation for the mission, celebrated RAF pilot Johnnie Shaux arrives in Normandy—not in the sky, but on one of the first landing crafts, dispatched to call in air support for the embattled Allied soldiers as they storm the beaches. Meanwhile, tactical military analyst Eleanor Shaux follows the events from Eisenhower’s headquarters back in England, vividly aware of von Moltke’s dictum: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
As the battered and bruised Allies fight their way toward Germany, Hitler unleashes his new tools of destruction—the V1 “buzzbomb” and the V2 rocket. While Johnnie joins the RAF’s risky efforts to paralyze Hitler’s weapons, the Allies launch the ill-fated airborne Operation Market Garden—against Eleanor’s advice—deep in enemy-held territory.
As 1944 draws to a close, the Nazis engage the Allied armies in a final desperate attempt to push them back in the Battle of the Bulge. And above the battlefield, Johnnie must contend with a game-changing, deadly threat: the world’s first operational jet fighter.
CW – Some (not too graphic) descriptions of battlefield injuries.
Dear Mr. Rhodes,
Last year I predicted that it would take two or three more books to finish off this series which began during the Battle of Britain. As this book toured through D-Day, Operation Market Garden, and finally the Battle of the Bulge, I thought that perhaps this would be it. Johnnie and Eleanor Shaux would survive to V-E Day and this would wrap it up. YIKES no. Wow, the end of this caught me by surprise in a total cliffhanger.
As in past books, the action is divided between Johnnie Shaux, a RAF fighter pilot who manages to be in the thick of things no matter where he is and his wife brilliant mathematician Eleanor Shaux who has been advising (at first) Air Chief Marshall Park and Churchill in late 1940 and then increasingly almost every major figure involved in the European front (excluding the Italian campaign).Johnnie flies, battles PTSD, and philosophizes even as all his friends are shot down. Eleanor gets frustrated with the men who poo-poo her mathematical predictions just because she’s a woman.
Eleanor tells Churchill that all the Allies need to do is not lose – which is not as simple and silly as it sounds. Her mathematical model was explained in book one and (OMG so exhaustively) re-explained in books two and three. Now one of her underlings is running this in London while she has been moved to the position of explaining military matters to military men and seemingly being asked by said men to predict what the enemy is thinking and will do during and after the D-Day landings.
The book opens with Johnnie landing on the beaches at Normandy (in the role of assisting fighters and bombers to locate targets that ground assault forces need to have “serviced.”) Of course the Allied plan doesn’t survive first contact with the enemy and Johnnie finds himself in a different role. Meanwhile Eleanor is the first person Ike speaks to in order to find out how things are going with the invasion and she’s tasked with childminding Churchill who simply must stick his oar in and be in Southwick House getting in everyone’s way.
Then skip ahead to September with Eleanor predicting dire outcomes to the British Generals determined to force Operation Market Garden down everyone’s throats. Johnnie however, gets to fly in support of the poor 82nd Airborne as it paddles across the Waal river in Holland. Eleanor does, and I can’t blame her, get to take great pleasure in mocking the supercilious (fake) Monty toady British General who has taken verbal potshots at her opinions of this operation.
Zipping forward again to late December, the action that Eleanor (of course accurately) foretold comes true as Hitler goes for broke and the ill prepared Allies take it on the chin before the weather breaks and bails them out. Eleanor, the almost perfect woman that she is, manages to escape from German clutches, too. Then comes the Cliffhanger!
In the first book, I loved Eleanor. I still love her smarts and that she doesn’t back down in the face of the inflated egos of the men with whom she works. But dang, she’s getting to be too practically perfect in every way. And though some men enjoy trying to belittle her, the almost fawning attitudes of many major historical figures does not compute with her thoughts on how she has been forced on them by Harry Hopkins (Roosevelt’s advisor) and Churchill.
I also still love Johnnie who struggles with what he sees during his actions on Sword beach. He’s a quiet man who does his duty with little fanfare as he watches his few close friends be shot down.
The historical research is, as usual, impeccable though I have to warn readers that unless you are really interested in the nitty-gritty minutia of war, long passages might be mind numbingly detailed. Just to find out What Happens Next, I will be looking for book six. B-/C+
~Jayne
AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle
