An exciting and timely novel that reads like today's headlines. Webb's narrative takes time to develop, but becomes absorbing in the second half as he paints a convincing picture of power politics in Washington and shows the impact of these struggles on U. S. military strategy in the Third World. He deftly describes war from a warrior's perspective--from the exhilaration of impending action to the despair over fallen comrades. What's more, he has gone to great pains to ensure that civilian readers are neither exasperated with jargon nor bewildered by tactics or equipment. On the contrary, his accounts of action in the Eritrean Desert by Cuban, French, Ethiopian, and American troops are compelling and readily comprehensible.

From Library Journal
Colonel Bill Fogarty is called to fight a war in Eritrea for reasons even he, a military man down to his Tennessee genes, spots as fraudulent. He becomes a compliant victim when a major conflict between a congressman and a defense secretary needs a diversion to distract the U.S. public. In the familiar web of international manipulation and megalomaniacal ambitions of twisted bureaucrats, Webb argues that if soldiers must die, let them die for worthy causes. Author of the revered Fields of Fire ( LJ 9/1/1978), he tries to instill into this fictionalized battle account the anguish of a real war. The transference does not quite take. Instead this morality play-cum-thriller must rely on portraits and vignettes of real-life Washington. In their own way, these are very good and certainly measure up to the demands of the Washington novel, but Webb fans will feel as if they consumed a Twinkie when they thought they were getting seven-grain bread.