The Eleventh Man

THE ELEVENTH MAN follows the WWII experiences of Montana native Ben Reinking, a journalist assigned to chronicle the adventures of his college football teammates, now involved in various war services. This powerful novel is ably narrated by Tom Stechschulte with a deeply masculine inflection and a decidedly Western feel. Pining for action himself, Reinking chafes at his assignment as a war correspondent, viewing his work as mere propaganda. The story becomes more complicated when his travels result in a difficult romance. Sadly chronicling his friends' deaths, some of which he finds to be mysterious, Reinking soon finds himself in mortal peril. Stechschulte's unaffected delivery is especially strong in depicting the historical details of the war. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

June 16, 2008
In the solid latest from veteran novelist Doig (The Whistling Season
), 11 starters of a close-knit Montana college championship football team enlist as the U.S. hits the thick of WWII and are capriciously flung around the globe in various branches of the service. Ben Reinking, initially slated for pilot training, is jerked from his plane and more or less forced to become a war correspondent for the semisecret Threshold Press War Project, a propaganda arm of the combined armed forces. His orders: to travel the world, visiting and writing profiles on each of his heroic teammates. The fetching Women's Airforce Service Pilot who flies him around, Cass Standish, is married to a soldier fighting in the South Pacific, which leads to anguish for them both (think Alan Ladd and Loretta Young). Meanwhile, Ben's former teammates are being killed one by one, often, it seems, being deliberately put into harm's way. Doig adroitly keeps Ben on track, offering an old-fashioned greatest generation story, well told.