The Turning Tide

From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, a magnificent historical novel about a young American naval officer’s greatest challenges in the fateful endgame of World War II in the Pacific

Scott Bradley James, like the United States Navy in which he serves, is uncertain of the course he sails in so many ways, both in war and love. While the existential threat of defeat that loomed over the first half of America’s war against Japan is behind him, much danger lies ahead.  Disastrous mistakes can still be made — and they will be — but with the mobilization of the world’s largest economy at a fever pitch, the only serious question for the remainder of the war will simply be how high the cost? For Scott Bradley James and his closest comrades, that cost will be high indeed — both at sea in a brutal war against a fanatic and unbowed foe, and on the home front in the fraught relations of the heart. 

Reminiscent of the magisterial War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk, The Turning Tide fuses many disparate elements into a spellbinding masterpiece of historical fiction. On one level it is a riveting human account of some of the most iconic battles in US military history, from the Leyte Gulf to Iwo Jima, and on to Okinawa and the dropping of the atomic bomb. And as we would expect from an Admiral whose premier métier is the testing of character under extreme pressure, it is also a deep meditation on command, a classic reckoning of what leadership means in the uncaring crucible of war. But ultimately what distinguishes this lyrical novel is its alchemical power to capture the blend of elements at work on the individuals caught up in the whirlwind of war: their courage and fear, loyalty to friend and country in contrast to the pettiness of vanity and personal ambition, and above all in the whirlwind of love and lust.

Rarely has a wide-angle understanding of the epic canvas of war been more happily married to an intimately calibrated reckoning with the character of individual combatants alongside their lovers at home and shipmates at sea. In this great historical crucible, an education is ultimately bequeathed, but at fearful cost to achieve truly enduring results. As in Dante’s Inferno, Scott Bradley James passes through the pain of conflict and confusion sailing upon a hard and uncaring sea, learning as he sails. Through the power of fiction, the fruits of his hard-won education in the most consequential war of our nation’s history is within reach of every reader.