Killing Rommel: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: armoured brigade, landing ground, wireless truck, Afrika Korps, Eighth Army, Kennedy Shaw (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. After five novels about conflict in ancient times (Gates of War, etc.), Pressfield effortlessly gives fresh life to wartime romance and the rigors of combat in a superior WWII thriller. Framed as the memoir of a British officer, the book is based on an actual British plot to assassinate the "Desert Fox," German field marshal Erwin Rommel, during late 1942 and early 1943 in North Africa. The author painstakingly sets the stage for later fireworks by charting the prewar career of R. Lawrence "Chap" Chapman, especially his relationship with the brilliant but doomed Zachary Stein, Chap's tutor and mentor at Oxford. Chap also falls in love with sexy Rose McCall, whose brains and brass later get her posted to naval intelligence in Egypt. As a young lieutenant, Chap joins the team assembled to go after Rommel. Pressfield expertly juxtaposes the personal with the historical, with authentic battle descriptions. Crisp writing carries readers through success, failure and a final face-to-face encounter with Rommel that's no less exciting for knowing the outcome. (Apr.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Moving away from the ancient world and into the 20th century seems to have served Steven Pressfield quite well. Many readers may be unfamiliar with the Long Range Desert Group (popularized in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol), but this powerful, thoroughly researched novel should change that. Pressfield creates the same edge-of-your-seat drama, remarkable battle scenes, and strong characters that populate his acclaimed novels of ancient warfare. Chapman contemplates war as he learns to fight and lead amid carnage; Rommel’s spirit threatens like a dark cloud over the entire story; and the ruthless desert emerges as its own character. The reviewer at Armchair General sums it up: “Reading Killing Rommel is the closest thing to actually participating in one of these daring WWII raids in the trackless desert of North Africa that any of us today will ever get.”
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385519702
• ISBN-13: 978-0385519700
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #178,962 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lesson in Honor, May 6, 2008

By	Baddyo - See all my reviews

The short line on Steven Pressfield's new book: the best. It almost hurts to write that because I've hung to Gates of Fire for a decade at the top of my best books ever list, a list that includes books from a wide genre, Victor Hugo to Stephen King, Tom Clancy to Par Lagerkvist, Mark Helprin to Howard Fast and everywhere in between. Pressfield's characters captured me from the first pages, and this tale of honor among men refused to let me put the book down. If you are a Pressfield fan, this book will not disappoint you on any level. If you are new to Mr. Pressfield, this book will encourage you to read his others.

I am particularly fond of historical novels because I consider them a painless way to learn history. Mr. Pressfield has never failed to teach his readers all the details within the historical context in which he writes, in this case, about the little known Long Range Desert Group, the LRDG, the predecessor to Special Forces as we know them in the modern era.

The story is simple: the memoir of a LRDG lieutenant who is part of a mission to kill Field Marshall Rommel and thereby disrupt the Axis control of North Africa and its hold on oil assets in the Middle East during World War II. The characters are noteworthy: average men with simple vocations who rise above their commonality in extraordinary circumstances by committing themselves to a mission simply because it was their job. The prose is crisp and fast and the story moves quickly and with intensity.

That is the short of it: great story with great characters that is impossible to put down until you've finished the final page. Scrupulously researched like all Pressfield books and packed with the type of action that would draw viewers to the big screen in droves. Hollywood cannot let this one pass. That's the short of it. If you need more, please continue .....

Steven Pressfield is a literary risk-taker: he started with a mystical golf journey, moved into the realm of ancient Greek history and now finds himself in the blistering deserts of North Africa surrounded by Rommel's Africa Corp. The common thread: ordinary men are capable of uncommon deeds when their purpose is fixed and their hearts are committed. Pressfield has told his stories as a fictional character, as a mythical woman, as a real historical character and now as Everyman in the guise of Lt. Chapman, "Chap" who finds himself in the middle of an unthinkable mission to cut off the head of the snake, to kill arguably the most dynamic military mind of modern warfare, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel.

As I journeyed through Mr. Pressfield's ancient histories, I was always very comfortable with his prose. It immersed me into a world, ancient and distant from my own. His prose is part of his genius as it captures the flavor of his historical era. Killing Rommel is his best writing yet. Mr. Pressfield has even elected to use the `s' in place of the `z' as is common in the King's English, "civilisation," for example instead of "civilization;" "tire" becomes "tyre." The choice of words and sentence structure help set the mood of the book by thrusting the reader into the 1940's. The reader becomes a part of the story.

From start to finish, our narrator emphasizes the character of Rommel, chivalrous and honorable. Despite Rommel's admirable personal qualities, the Allies are convinced that without him, the Axis struggle in North Africa will collapse, hence Churchill's directive to kill Rommel. I will not reveal any of the many twists that Mr. Pressfield has crafted, but when I finished the book, I held the same respect for the Desert Fox that was shared by Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery and the members of the LRDG, heroes all. Within hours after finishing the book, I found myself contemplating how the German Republic could have produced two, such diverse characters at each end of the proverbial spectrum as Erwin Rommel and Adolf Hitler. How could one wage war with regret and honor while the other directed the murder of millions of innocent people? Intentionally or not, Mr. Pressfield elicited these questions from me as I read this book. While there is no answer, the future requires us to ask ourselves such questions as we reflect on our past.

You probably already know that Rommel was not killed by the LRDG or any other group of Allies. The pursuit and the encounter however will make this harrowing journey through the desert more than worthwhile.

I am a slow reader. A solid 80% of the books I read are novels. Only once in my life have I ever sat and read a book from cover to cover with no breaks. One Friday evening in 1971 while in pilot training in Georgia, I opened The Exorcist and didn't put it down until early the next morning, scared witless I might add. Thirty-seven years later, older and wiser, I did the same thing with Killing Rommel; I devoured it in a single night. This time when I put the book down, I felt pride to be able to call myself a true brother-in-arms to soldiers past, present and future.

Four decades ago while still a senior in college, I read Armageddon by Leon Uris. That is the only novel I have ever used a magic marker on. Within the last month, I had that old 1963 copy out and found exactly the passages I was looking for thanks to that blue marker. Last week, once again, I broke out a marker and wielded it for the first time in 40 years while I read Killing Rommel. I sensed early on that this is a special book. I was right. In what is certainly a profound, autobiographical conviction, Mr. Pressfield has Chap's 'dear friend and brother-in-law' include these words in Chap's eulogy, "Literature was his religion. He believed in the written word, in the soul-to-soul communion between writer and reader that takes place in the silence between the covers of a book."

American historian and philosopher Will Durant once said, "We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as to the events of the last sixty centuries." For a decade now, Steven Pressfield has given us a very entertaining way to play catch up. We need to thank him and exploit his efforts. Mr. Pressfield believes in the written word.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History With Feeling, June 25, 2008

By	David Donelson "Author of Heart of Diamonds" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I struggled for awhile with Steven Pressfield's Killing Rommel, but came to appreciate it more the deeper I delved into its compelling story. The difficulty I had was in finding motivation for the characters among the almost overwhelmingly detailed descriptions of the theater of war, the weapons, the military organizations, politics, and combat operations. Once I allowed the voices of the characters to come through, however, I discovered that they were driven by a simple but powerful force: honor.

The authoritative chronicle of military history is Pressfield's forte. In this book, he brings his considerable research and facile presentation style to the story of an unsung secret unit of the British Army, the Long Range Desert Group, whose mission is simple: find and kill the legendary commander of the German Afrika Korps, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. The story takes place in 1942, when Rommel and his Panzers have defeated the British Eighth Army and stand ready to capture Egypt, Suez, and the oilfields of Arabia.

The LRDG is sent to decapitate the Afrika Korps by killing its leader, a desperate bid to turn the tide of the war. The story is based on actual ops, but told from the point of view of a young Lieutenant, "Chap" Chapman, who has recently married his sweetheart before shipping out for the desert. His attempts to communicate with her and meet their new-born child provide welcome human interest relief from the unending tales of desert warfare.

Pressfield goes to great length to show the reader what combat is like, with extensive descriptions of tactics, weapons, and the skills necessary to survive in the brutal desert environment. He also plumbs the feelings of his characters, their doubts and fears, their blind spots and their visions in both the heat of battle and the long slogs of ennui between. It's a realistic description of warfare, both modern and ancient, and the way it plays on the men and women involved.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Horror and Glory of War in North Africa, May 7, 2008

By	Mark R., Whittington "author of Children of A... (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Killing Rommel, a novel written by Stephen Pressfield, is a fictional memoir of a World War II British officer named Chapman who serves in the North Africa Campaign. It is also an awesome story of men at war.

In Killing Rommel, the reader follows the fictional Chapman through his early life at a British public school, Oxford, the incredible seesaw fight in North Africa between the British 8th Army and Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, and then an ultimately doomed raid with the famous Long Range Desert Task Force to assassinate the German commander who was called, deservedly, the Desert Fox. Along the way the reader gets a feeling for what it was like to participate in one of the oddest campaigns in military history, atypical to most wars of the 20th Century, certainly on World War II.

Chapman, a tank commander, is attached to the Long Range Desert Task Force in a mission designed to kill that man of honor and brilliance. But first they have to find their target, a story that occupies most of the last third of the novel. What follows is an epic of men at war, it's horror and glory, as compelling as anything Stephen Pressfield has written before, in his novels set in Ancient Greece.