War Cry: A Courtney Family Novel

This is a work by Wilbur Smith and David Churchill. How much was contributed by which man is not revealed. Mr. Smith is now in his mid-eighties. Nonetheless, it is seamlessly a Wilbur Smith epic, featuring, as always, larger-than-life characters at the upper end of their societies both financially and in personal achievements. And we are introduced to another branch of the Courtenay family, originating, as so often in Smith’s works, in the richness of Africa.

Saffron Courtenay is devastated by loss of one of her parents while she is still young. The exceptional girl attends an exclusive school in Africa, and, becoming entranced with the opening opportunities for women, aims for and achieves entry into Oxford. There is abstinence despite burgeoning sexuality, ending in a relationship with a potential enemy.

With family complications on either side of the oncoming conflict of WWII, the multiple complications–familial, business, and national–are employed seamlessly to inveigle the reader into caring attention. In the end scenes, lovers meet again across smoking gun barrels, nothing is finally resolved, and it is obvious that we have been trapped into at least one sequel. So artistically was this done that I cannot muster the least resentment.