Adult Fiction--Coonts to Crofts

Coonts, Stephen.  Victory (Doherty, Tom Associates, 2003).

A stirring tribute to the Greatest Generation of Americans, Victory brings together the finest military fiction writers in the world with short novels of courage, skill, daring, and sacrifice. Here you will meet the men and women who fought and won World War II and truly made the world safe for democracy, in thrilling stories of war as it really was fought. An exciting sequel to Stephen Coonts’ bestselling Combat, Victory brings together today’s greatest military, espionage, and technothriller writers in all-original, thrilling tales of World War II—great short novels that range from the home front to the battlefields of Europe to the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

Cozzens, J.G.  Guard of Honor (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948).

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in an Air Force training base in Florida in 1942. It takes place over the course of three days and centers around the various characters responses to a racial incident. It gives a good depiction of the homefront military during wartime.

Crichton, Robert.  The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Simon & Schuster, 1966).

"Santa Vittoria has a secret. And they're not telling anybody. Especially the occupying Nazis! The setting is World War II and this remote village in Italy has decided to defy the Nazis, who have come to loot the village of its extensive wine cellars. To thwart them, the villagers, led by the irascible Bambolini, decide to hide their precious wine, and hide it they do. This is a story of wills--that of the villagers and that of the Nazi officer who
knows full well there is a treasurse of wine here, but he can't get anyone to admit it. Crichton uses this plot line to support other avenues as well, the relationships between the Italian citizens there, the unholy occupation of the Germans, the character of Bambolini and his wife.”  (Bill Hobbs for AllReaders.com)

Crofts, Freeman Wills.  Death Of A Train (House of Stratus; New Education edition, 2001).

Set during World War II, a network of German sympathizers plans to derail a train carrying vital war supplies. Due to a delay another train is derailed instead, the intended one then being diverted safely round the blockage. Inspector French tracks down the conspirators, nearly losing his life in a heroic final action to prevent their escape.