Whistle

A fine read indeed. The third and final of Jones soldier trilogy. I was not expecting this to reach the heights of From Here to Eternity, few novels can, but this was certainly up there with The Thin Red Line.

Anyone that writes a suicide that makes the hairs stand on end knows how to write. This is not a book for the faint hearted and as one gets through the story of the 4 protagonists one senses that their life of, by some standards, depraved sexual needs, booze culture, their endless nightmares of things that they as young men (and old) should not see is sending them over the edge.

The death of the author prior to finishing the final three chapters is obviously disappointing but I for one am not a critic of the publisher for the overview that was written from the Jones descriptions of what he intended prior to his passing. Why should anyone attempt to write in his style anyway. This would have made the book a false record of what he had to say about post traumatic stress disorder anyway.