1942
Robert Conroy has established himself as a leading writer of “what if” historical fiction in his 1901, 1862, and 1945 novels. 1942 continues this rather curious fixation on dates as titles by asking “what if” the Japanese had launched a second air strike on Pearl Harbor? The answer is the U.S. Navy would have been paralyzed by further damage and a hastily planned Japanese amphibious assault would then seize control of Hawaii. The large number of historical participants is worked into the tale of Japanese occupation and American response in a perfectly seamless manner with the nicely outlined fictional characters. The central American fictional personalities are the resourceful Captain Jake Novacek and the pacifist-turned-warrior Alexa Sanderson. Their Japanese counterpart antagonist is the sinister and thoroughly corrupt Colonel Shigenori Omori of the Kempetei. Omori’s task is to use terror and torture to extinguish any opposition to Imperial rule over Hawaii. Alexa comes into this brutal world and endures only because of Jake’s instructions to do anything to survive. Jake becomes a resistance leader who works with the U.S. forces on the mainland in their counterattack. The “what ifs” in the story are not totally outside the realm of possibility, and they offer a fitting background for the tale of heroism, greed, subterfuge, and the search for love in the shadows of total war and barbaric militarism.
