The Preserve: A Novel
In February 1948, U.S. Army deserter Wendell Lett hides in Belgium with his young wife and new son. Lett is no coward. He has unusual hand-fighting and shooting skills. But too much up-close trauma on the front lines in Germany shoved him over the edge. His superior officer finds him and gives him a choice—report to jail or to a secret military Preserve on the Big Island of Hawaii. Time at the Preserve will cure him, Lett is told. Before reporting and on his last night of freedom on the island, Lett runs into local Alana Kanani. She too is headed to the Preserve and assignments that will lead to a better life than her brothel past.
At first, injections of special medicine and various assignments do seem to relieve Lett’s PTSD. But, as his condition improves, Lett realizes he is being trained to return to the very carnage that destroyed him. His shadowy masters want him to become a high-level killer and help them find hidden Japanese treasures on their path to becoming powerful rulers in the post-WWII chaos. He must do as ordered or die a brutal slow death.
Anderson quickly puts the reader into Lett’s deeply troubled mind, into Alana’s clever ploys, into the terrain and physical challenges. He knows the military, the weapons, and jargon. His prose is often compelling (slum huts “held together with rope and tar and mud and a whole lot of worry”).
Overall, this is not so much a military thriller. It is a deep study of what war and greed can do to the survivors.
