Rating: 
Summary: You can feel the cold.
Review: I am the son of a career Marine and one of my memories of childhood is the murals inside the movie theatre at MCAS New River. I knew little about the Korean War when I was seven but I vividly remember seeing the mural depicting Marines at the Chosin Reservoir and understanding how tough they really were. I really like James Brady as an author and he does a very good job in showing the cold and fatigue the combatants endured during the campaign. The strongpoints of the book are its character development and the descriptions of the environment as Winter approaches. This book may not appeal to fans of template thrillers but as a novel of man vs. man vs. nature it is an excellent work.
Rating: 
Summary: Fails on both Fronts
Review: I am afraid that the most interesting part of the book may be the cover. The picture of the snow bound Marines carries more emotion that the text.
The novel fails both as military history and as drama. For the military history enthusiast, there is not much there. There is very little, if anything, that one cannot find better described elsewhere. If one is looking not for tactics, but combat, you will also be dissapointed. The action, such as it is, is not described with any passion or violence.
There is also a real shortage of drama. Brady takes far too long to get on with the plot. It takes fully one half of the book, almost 130 pages, to get the the main character from his place as Marine reservist and single parent at home in the USA to the front in Korea. Another one quarter of the book is lost as he advances with the Marines. Finally, with only one quarter of the book left, the Chinese attack. There is not enough of the text left to truly develop the most, perhaps the only, interesting part of the book.
There are many flashbacks as the hero remembers his wife who died in childbirth. There are also tender moments when he thinks of his young daughter and what may befall her if he does not return. While these are touching, the writing does not convey the pain and longing that must accompany such moments.
The unhappy ending is simply a downer. I presume that the randomness of the hero's demise is intended to convey to us the futility and waste of war. Once again, the writing simply does not carry it through. One is left only with the feeling that one pushed through 250 pages and was left with not much to show for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Less than gripping
Review: Initially, I was very interested in reading this book having read Breakout by Martin Russ, which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend highly. It started off well, then Mr. Brady attempted to write words from the mouth of Captain Verity's 5-year-old daughter. My daughter is 6 and she never once spoke like Verity's little girl. Then again, my daughter doesn't have a French nanny like Tom Verity's does. Maybe little girls who do speak differently. I also wasn't quite sure what the flashbacks to his wife, and the privileged life they led prior to her death, had to do with the withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir. If it was an attempt to get inside Tom Verity, to understand him, it failed to do that for me. I felt nothing for him and was not saddened by his death. He seemed to be an eyewitness looking at everything from afar. Even his understanding of Chinese wasn't much help to anyone. Tom Verity never seemed to really be there.
Rating:
Summary: Reality is stranger than fiction
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. After reading several of the nonfiction accounts of the Chosin campaign, this book seemed dull and boring. The best book to read is "Breakout", by Martin Russ. It is more exciting and stunning than this fictional account.
Rating: 
Summary: OK book but....
Review: The book was interesting for the first part but then it got kind of repetitive in the sense that every other segment was about Verity thinking about his daughter but not really saying what he was thinking. Also I'm wondering what were the sources Brady used when writing this historical fiction? I didn't see a bibliography at the end, did I miss or was there not one? Otherwise it would have been a good and touching tale.
Rating:
Summary: This is the real deal!
Review: What a great book! As someone very interested in history, I am ashamed to admit that the lionshare of my knowledge on the Korean War comes from watching MASH. This book helped me to gain a greater understanding of what went on in the early days of the war. That however, is not why I loved this book. It was the charachters - Verity, Tate and Izzo were so 3 dimensional, I felt like they were real people I had gotten to know. The reader was given some great insight into what each man was thinking, what he held dear and what he feared most. It had great examples of how one's position in life can often times dictate behavior. This book was as Mouse Izzo might have said: "Glorioso!"
Rating: 
Summary: A Heart Breaking American War Story
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It is a sad story, but one that needs to be told. With relatives that fought in Korea, I never really had an idea of what they went through. Reading this book really made me see what amazing people they were, not only to go through it, but to survive. Capt. Verity is a great man, and a caring father, a new father myself, I could feel his pain being so far away from his daughter. After reading this book, I couldn't help thinking to myself that I need to call my relatives, and thank them.
Rating:
Summary: An good addition to anyone's collection on the Korean War
Review: This is a very good and short novel on a group of Marines that were involved with the Chosin Campaign of the Korean War. It tells the story of a reservist that is called back to active duty and forced into action in the Korean War simply because he speaks Chinese. Him and 4 other Marines that he is assigned try to stay alive and worry about getting home, like anyone else in a war. This is a decent war to start your collection on the Korean War.
Rating:
Summary: An Epic Tale of Courage and Discipline
Review: This is a remarkable novel about a remarkable event. During October 1950 in North Korea near the Chosin Reservoirs, twelve Chinese divisions surrounded the U.S. First Marine Division. The Chinese launched a surprise attack aimed at cutting off the First Division and then annihilating it. To the West, the Second Division of the U.S. Army fell apart under pressure from the Chinese. There was every reason to believe the Marines would be surrounded and massacred. They had only one tiny road running through mountains and narrow passes to carry them back to the sea over 70 miles away. The survival of the Marines and their march to the sea is an epic tale of courage, discipline, and the power of esprit de corps in horrible weather against almost overwhelming odds. It was captured brilliantly in Pat Frank's Hold Back the Night a generation ago and now almost poetically in a new novel by a veteran of the campaign. This book is made even more poignant by the post script, "I've been asked by several people who read this novel in pre-publication if the fictional Thomas Verrity was inspired by my rifle company commander in the Taebaek Mountains of North Korea, Captain John H. Chaffee of Rhode Island, who would later become Governor of his state, Secretary of the Navy and a United States senator. Yes, he was." There is a deep heart felt sense of truth in this novel and of the anguish of life when a free people have to lose their loved ones in combat because of grotesque failures of leadership. This is a Marine's novel. It is harsh and unrelenting in telling of MacArthur's overconfidence, isolation, and self-deception. It is painful for me as an Army brat to read some of its description of the breakdown of the Army that winter. This book is also a sobering reminder that a weak, unprepared America pays in blood for its politicians' unwillingness to pursue strength as the only sure safeguard of peace and freedom. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A good way to spend memorial day
Review: I read this book on Memorial Day. Apart from the fact that some of the dialog was a bit cliché the story was very good. I think repeatedly mentioning the vulnerability of three Marines in enemy territory is an excellent way of portraying what must be on the minds of the three. I enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to others. Especially, if they are interested in learning about the conditions faced by the men in The Chosin Few.
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