Saturday, May 12, 2012

Book Review: Killing Rommel

Having a fascination with military history, I have always enjoyed WWII books and movies. Recently, I watched Patton and am currently listening to the audiobook, The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara. What got me started on my current WWII kick was listening to the audiobook version of Steven Pressfield's Killing Rommel. Mr. Pressfield has us follow a british soldier who is a member of the Long Range Desert Group. This was a group who helped scout out the enemy formations in Africa and conduct raids behind enemy lines. This soldiers patrol's particular mission is, as the book's title suggest, to kill Rommel. As Mr. Pressfield has done in so many of his books, he is able to convey the daily hardship the lowly infantry man or shield carrier or Macedonian foot soldier must endure. In this case, surviving in the deserts of Africa. The images Pressfield created in my mind of the desert and what the men had to go through to reach their objectives I still remember a month after reading the book. The letters to his wife were the only parts that caused the book to drag in parts. Not necessarily the first one, but the multiple stops. It's interesting because in The Rising Tide, there are stops when other individuals talk about home and letters, but I didn't feel the same level of disruption. There was also one part in Killing Rommel that seemed quite unbelievable. Killing Rommel is a good book that I recommend to anyone interested in the North African campaigns of WWII.