Review of Rescuing General Patton

OTrain Disene · Post by **OTrain Disene** » 20 Jan 2022, 15:32

[Following is a volunteer review of "Rescuing General Patton" by Curtis Stephen Burdick.]

4 out of 4 stars

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Rescuing General Patton is a historical military action novel written by Curtis Stephen Burdick. It is about a group of soldiers going on a dangerous mission to rescue a general who has been captured by the Germans during World War II. It will grab you from the first page to the last one and leave you out of breath.

The book opens up in the present, where John Harding is in the book store, signing copies of his newly released book. He is sixty-two, and he is a retired US Army major. He was working on the division of the Army’s Department of Records for thirty years. He has spent the last eight years writing military biographies. So if there is one person who might know what happened to General Patton in World War II, it is him. That’s why Julia Patton Walton comes to him in that book store, and gives him the manuscripts that have been in her family for years, so he could try to investigate and find out what happened to her grandfather in the ‘40s. Harding recognises her as soon as she introduces herself to him. He takes this case, and he researches further about this mission that was done under the radar.

While General Patton is travelling on a Jeep with other soldiers, they get ambushed. He survives, but he is heavily injured. With the help of one soldier who also survived, he exchanges uniforms, from his of general to of a dead colonel. He commands this soldier to run back and tell only General Bradley of his capture. The soldier runs back, and he does as he was commanded when he arrives.

General Bradley quickly assembles a team that will go on this mission, which will be conducted under the wraps, so it doesn’t come out, as that will be dangerous for almost everyone. Captain Peter Pizzio is the one who is selected to lead this team. A lot of things go wrong in this mission. Captain Pizzio keeps losing men, and he even thinks of quitting, but that’s not possible because a lot is at stake for him. Plus, the fact that he is not told the name of the person he is going through hell to rescue makes matters worse for him. Would he complete the mission successfully? To what extent is he willing to go to see it through? What’s with the secrecy? Find out more by picking this book.

I agree this book would be fitting to be adapted into a movie, and I think it definitely should be. The action in here was so vivid. The author wrote in such a manner that I, as a reader, felt included. It was like I was inside the action, not outside looking in. The descriptions were detailed. They didn’t give out too much, but just enough to draw pictures in my mind and let my imagination do the rest. The author employed the show-don’t-tell technique so unbelievably well. The dialogue and the narration were balanced. I have never been in a war, but I have watched a lot of movies about war to know how soldiers typically speak with each other. So even in this book, they spoke like true soldiers. It shows that the author did his research well into character development. I think the fact that this book is a product of part fiction and part true story contributed greatly to its authenticity.

The book’s protagonist is General Patton, but General Pizzio stole the show. I fell in love with him, and when he wasn’t appearing, even for a short while, I yearned for him. He brought the human side to this cruel environment. When he kept losing his men on the battlefield, especially in this one particular scene where they were jumping from the plane with parachutes, and they found out too late when they landed on the ground that their landmines. That scene was cruel, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have urged Captain Pizzio to just disobey the direct order he got because clearly, he was leading his men to death.

There was nothing I disliked about this book. Everything met and even exceeded my expectations.

It is with great pleasure to rate it four out of four stars. The book seemed to be professionally edited because I came across a few minor errors that didn’t mar the quality of the book. There are profanities, as soldiers tend to swear on the battlefield, but they are not too severe to turn anyone off. I strongly recommend it to individuals who are into novels that have a lot of actions and those who are just into military wars.

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Rescuing General Patton
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