Customer Reviews

Duty: A Novel

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3 star:		(1)
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Lane has a talent for displaying the very worst of his characters with a single well-chosen phrase, and in DUTY he gives us a panoply of "subhuman" enlisted men and stiff martinets in the officer class, all trying to retire with more brass and retirement funds than anyone else. Indeed the whole system seems absurd in Lane's cosmos, a Navy without a purpose, a Navy emasculated by successive runs of job cuts and budget reductions and, although this isn't as clear, too much "peace." The way he pictures the Navy, it's almost as though only a nut would join. The plot runs smoothly enough, though I didn't enjoy the "red herring" factor of the two brothers who happened to be staying, in their underwear, in the apartment of the Petty Officer accused of being gay. What was that all about? Didn't Chekhov say, where there's smoke, there's got to be at least a little bit of fire?

Lane writes about the really tough choices a JAG Navy officer is forced to make, and does it straight. DUTY is a serious novel, superbly written.

Jim Lane has done an excellent job of capturing the daily struggles and nuances of shipboard life, and the pressures on junior officers, and portraying them in a way that will capture the attention of an audience that knows nothing of the Navy. A very worthwhile read.