June 1944. The Allies deliver a staggering blow to Hitler's Atlantic fortress, leaving the beaches and bluffs of Normandy strewn with corpses. The Germans have only one chance to stop the immense invasion-by bottling up the Americans on the Cotentin Peninsula . There, in fields crisscrossed with dense hedgerows, many will meet their death while others will search for signs of life. Among the latter are two very different men, each with his own demons to fight and his own reasons to risk life for his fellow man.

Joe Amos Biggs is an invisible “colored” driver on the Red Ball Express, a desperate and colossal effort that serves as a pre-cious lifeline to the front. Delivering fuel and ammunition to men whose survival depends on the truckers, Joe Amos finds himself hungering to make his mark and propelled into battle among thong those who don't see him as an equal-but will need him to be a hero.

A chaplain in the demoralized 90 th Infantry, Rabbi Ben Kahn is a veteran of the first great war old enough to be the father of GIs he tends. Searching for the truth about his own son, a downed pilot missing in action, Kahn finds himself dueling with God, wading into combat without a gun, and becoming a leader among men in need of someone-anyone-to follow. The prize: the liberation of paris , where a ruthless American traitor known as Chien Blanc-White Dog-grows fat and rich in the black market. Whatever the occupied city's destiny, destroyed or freed, he will win.

The fates of these men will collide, hurtling toward an uncommon destiny in which people commit deeds they cannot foresee and can never truly explain.

From the screams of German. 88 howitzers to the last whispers of dying young sol-diers, Robbins captures war in all its awful fullness. And through the eyes of his unique characters, he leaves us with a mature, brilliant, and memorable vision of humanity in the face of inhumanity itself.

DAVID L. ROBBINS is the author of Last Citadel, Scorched Earth, the End of War, War of the Rats, and Souls to Keep. He divides his time among Richmond , Boston , and his sailboat.