Until the End » (Unabridged, 11 Cassettes)

James and Kevin Bannon, the two brothers introduced in Look Away, continue to serve on opposing sides. James with the 4th Virginia Regiment and Kevin commanding a company in the 4th New Jersey. In their struggle to survive, their fear that one day they'd encounter each other on the battlefield was finally realized during the terrible conclusion of the third day at Gettysburg. Now, in the bloody aftermath of that titanic struggle, James and Kevin continue their brutal and bloody experience of war. From the dark and inconclusive days of the Mine Run Campaign in the fall of 1863, through the terrible "Forty Days" that took the two armies from the Wilderness to the gates of Petersburg, the brothers soldier on. James, with Lee's Army, watches as it slowly bleeds itself to death defending a state he has come to love. Kevin, living with the realization that James is serving in the army his nation is committed to destroy, marches with the Army of the Potomac as he alternates between a desperate search for James and his terrible burden as an officer, leading men he has grown to love into bloody battles that will claim their lives.

Publishers Weekly

The latter years of the War Between the States come to fierce life in Coyle's sequel to Look Away (1995). Covering 1863-1865, the narrative continues the desperate chronicle of two Irish American brothers, James and Kevin Bannon, as they fight on opposing sides. James is a private in a Confederate infantry regiment; Kevin is a captain in a Union regiment. Both men are tired, embittered and hardened after enduring two years of suffering, sacrifice and danger through grueling campaigns and horrific battles. With death and fear as constant companions, they are battlefield enemies, but they also share the burdens of loss and pain. Estranged from their tyrannical father, they mourn for the girl they both loved and lost, each blaming the other for his suffering. As the war drags on, grinding down the lives and wills of both armies, James and Kevin grow ever more brutal, and increasingly fatalistic about their own chances for survival. From the Wilderness and Spotsylvania to Petersburg and Appomattox, Coyle renders the Civil War battlefields in stark and gripping fashion. Gone, however, are the subplots that added spice and intrigue to the earlier book. The story line here is simpler, leading the two brothers down a predictable path to forgiveness and redemption. (Sept.)