Rating: 
Summary: An American history buff's unexpected find
Review: American history books devote little space and attention to the Frech and Indian war. Coyle's panoramic backdrop for relating the story of this war along the colonial frontier from Lake George, NY to Ft. Dusquene (the eventual site of Pittsburg, PA) captures the historic essence of this, the last of the great colonial wars. Coyle deftly intertwines the exploits of four main characters - a French army officer, a colonial soldier of the Virginia militia, an Indian ally of the French, and a British army officer - to show: the basic French motive to simply lay claim to all of the unsettled areas of North America; the inept effort by ill-equipped and ill-trained colonial militia to oust the French and their Indian allies from their western frontier; the major role of the Indians in inflicting the worst rout ever experienced by a white force in the new world; and the ill-suited battle tactics of the regular English army in the dense forests of the frontier. Only the French decision not to continue
Rating: 
Summary: Educational & entertaining
Review: Another solid historical novel from Harold Coyle. This time arguably about the first 'Anglo-American war': i.e. native Americans against the English. Background events are properly summarised for a generalist audience. Captured the irony of Jacobite Irish & Scottish troops who found themselves in the British forces fighting against their natural French allies. Sets the background for a novel of American liberation.
Rating:
Summary: History comes alive
Review: As a native of Pittsburgh and a very distant relative of British General John Forbes, I'm fascinated by the French and Indian War. Coyle sure makes the period come alive. The only better account is Eckert's "Wilderness Empire". For all you non-Pittsburghers, did you know that the field of Braddock's Defeat is thought to be where the Edgar Thompson Steel Works are today? That Three Rivers Stadium is the site where the Indians had such intense sport with their British and Colonial prisoners? Thanks Harold for making this often neglected period come alive. Keep up the great writing and I'll keep buying. Paperback, of course.
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining epic . . .
Review: Continuing his successful transition from modern techno-thrillers to historical fiction, Harold Coyle has turned in a solid effort in "Savage Wilderness," a novel of the French & Indian Wars. This novel is entertaining not just for flint & powder history buffs, but for anyone even with a remote interest in this romantic, bygone era. With a sweeping scope, well-sketched characters, and finely tuned action scenes, "Savage Wilderness" is a true epic. "The Last of the Mohicans" this is not, but that doesn't mean a great movie can't be adapted from it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good idea, not-so-good execution
Review: Coyle's work for me has been very inconsistent. From the laughable Team Yankee to the believeable Sword Point, Savage Wilderness was a book I started with high hopes and finished it somewhat disappointed. My biggest complaint is the grafting of 20th century values onto the main character, an exiled survivor of the '45. His hatred of the Crown is odd, considering most of the Scots that settled in the New World were Loyalists, being defeated at Moore's Creek Bridge in 1775. The combat scenes were well done, and the characterization of a British officer in an "unfashionable" regiment was not bad, but the other bits left me disappointed. I'd like to see more good fiction on the F&I RevWar period, but so far I've not been impressed by any of the more recent stuff, except Thomas Fleming's _Liberty Tavern_.
Rating: 
Summary: What to say..... (3.5 stars)
Review: First, it is really just less then a four star book. Coyle must have done a tremendous amount of research for this one. Some of the settings and characters are truly well done. This time period in America (prior to the Revolutionary War) is not real familiar to a lot of folks. This book presents this time very well. It is part history lesson, part action/romance. At times Coyle was a little long winded when setting up the next scene. But, if you pay attention, you will learn something new about the history of the United States. George Washington make several appearence as a young man in the Colonial Militia. Times were hard back then. Especially on the frontier. The frontier extended all the way out to the Ohio River Valley. A lot of the middle of the book takes place in what they called the Wilderness. I can reccommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Coyle ventures further into the past
Review: Harold Coyle is one of the followers-on of Tom Clancy. He's done a series of reasonably well-recieved books based on modern potential conflicts. What sets him apart is that one of his main characters in several of the books is female, and she's relatively believable. He's made it so that it's concievable that a woman could be a good officer at the infantry level, which is an accomplishment.
However, Coyle has taken a different tack the last several years. He's been writing historical novels, and though in some ways they're good, he's gotten away from his strenghts. He did two novels on the Civil War (Look Away and Until the End) which rested on a tenuous and predictable plot device: one brother winds up in the Confederate army, the other in the Union one...it was a bit much.
Here, he ventures into the French and Indian wars. He has four main characters, a British officer, a Scotsman who's been transported as a prisoner to Virginia and earned his freedom there, a French artillery officer who is a follower of Rousseau and Voltaire, and an American Indian, who's allied with the French because it gives him a chance to kill whites. The plot device used to connect the characters is that two of them met at Culloden in 1745 (the British officer and the Scotsman). This only sort of works; there's no reason for the other two people to be in the story at all. They see each other on the battlefield (the Frenchman and the Indian have a conflict going on, over when it's reasonable to kill prisoners), but other than that there's no interaction at all between the characters. So the story meanders along, not really anything more than an excuse to hang a recounting of the French and Indian war onto several plot devices. Don't get me wrong: I have no objection to the history itself, it's just that the wooden love scenes in the middle sort of detract from the overall effect. There are parts of the war that get much treatment, because the characters are there, and other parts that get scant or no treatment, because they aren't... Lastly, you're left hanging, waiting for the Revolutionary war sequel, knowing that the colonials will be rebels, wondering what the British officer will do (he marries a wealthy New Yorker towards the end of the book), and wondering completely what's happening to the Indians. It's been four years, and Coyle's written other books, which are modern again. Maybe the sequel was going to be more of the same, and the publisher told him to return to what he's good at.
Rating:
Summary: What happened to the ending?
Review: Having read (and enjoyed) several of the author's previous books - particularly the Civil War duology - I looked forward to this novel. After an interesting start & middle, which appeared to be building up to an excellent climax, the story just appeared to fizzle out. OK, we found out (sort of) what happened to the French & British officers and the Scottish refugee, but the Indian brothers seemed to disappear into thin air, and the latter elements of the campaigns and battles where only covered in a sketchy manner. It felt like we were being prepared for a sequel; is this the case?
Rating:
Summary: Mistakes, mistakes, Mr. Coyle
Review: I agree absolutely with everything Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Bliss had to say below. So why do I write this letter? After viewing all the reviews, I found no one felt to correct Coyle's mistakes when it came to the Scottish personal and clan names. May I start my long list? First, McPherson is wrong. It should be MacPherson. I know that sounds picky, but it's true. Most everyone can tell an Irish name from a Scotish one right? Wrong. It is quite difficult. Except when it comes down to Mc and Mac. Mac is "Son of" in Gaelic. At least a slight abbreviation. Mc is the same thing. It's from the Scottish immigrants during the Hanoverian slaughter after the disaster of the Second Jacobite Rebellion, and when Henry VIII of England decided to make Ireland protestant. He failed. All HE succeeded in doing was starting a 500 year plus civil war that's still raging across Northern Ireland. I'm going off track now. MacPherson would be Scottish and McPherson would be Irish. Again, a mistake there. In Look Away and Until the End, I believed the use of Mc in the name. One reason: Mis-spelling due to passage of time. However, it seems I was mistaken. Now, a thing to do with the first chapter. Culloden. Actually, two things. I'll just spill out the unimportant one, shall I? He spelt Stewart wrong when referring to the clan. Stuart is the spelling of the name the Scottish monarchs whom reigned over England and Scotland used. Stewart is the clan name. The original spelling of the monarchs' name was the same, but was changed due to the passage of time and to English historians. However, no one bothered to change the name of the clan. The MacPherson name was not at the tail of the Stewart caln, but at the head of another clan. The MacPherson clan! Big surprise isn't it? Furthermore, The Stewart are Lowlanders and Islanders. Not Highlanders. MacPhersons were, though. I've been searching for an awful long time trying to find a MacPike, but there isn't one! I wouldn't know about the Irish, but if there isn't a Scottish version, there probably won't be an Irish McPike. At least, he got the Dutch name Van der Hoff correct. Almost. It should be van der Hoff. You don't capitolize the van even if it is the first word of the name. Try it out. Which looks better to the trained eye: Katherine van der Hoff Katherine Van der Hoff Well? It's up to you to decide. With all the cock-ups to due with name so far, when Katherine van der Hoff came into view, I thought, "Oh no, he's gonna make this one a German." I have a destincted feeling Mr. Coyle is using name examples of people he's met, and not researching them. A shame, an important part of a historical fiction novel are the names use. In case you're wondering why I took such vigor in trying to get the facts straight, I'm desended from a very long list of clans MacEmen Reviresco MacGregor 'S rioghal mo dhream Wallace Pro libertate Stewart Virescit vulnere virtus Armstrong Invictus Maneo And I'm very proud of my heritage aswell. Benn
Rating:
Summary: Not one of Coyle's best, unfortunately
Review: I'm very much a fan of Coyle's earlier novels,
and appreciate his intensive background research,
imagination, and ability to tell a good yarn. But
he seems to get bogged down in trying to depict
this particular period in American history in an entertaining way. He's at his best in the
first 45 pages or so when he describes the Battle
of Cullendon with color and emotion. After that,
however, his characters and writing lack depth and
interest. For the first 150 pages, at a point where I gave up on the book, his bands of soldiers
spend most of their time roaming the wilderness with occasional skirmishes to add a bit of spice,
but there's no real feeling for just what went on historically and personally during the French
and Indian War. In my mind, Coyle seems much more
at home when not bound by true historic events,
but at those times when he can make full use of
his vivid imagination. I'd love to see his next
novel tell of a conflict between the U.S. and China, or of another 21st century war yet to come.
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