Warning of War » (Unabridged, 8 cassettes, 12 hrs.)

James Brady, a leading figure in the New York journalism world and a virtuoso storyteller who made the Korean War his canvas, died in 2009. He was 80.

Late November of 1941.

Half the world is at war, and with the other half about to join in, a thousand U.S. Marines stand sentinel over the last days of an uneasy truce between ourselves and the Imperial Japanese Army in chaotic North China.

By November 27, FDR is convinced Japan is about to launch a military action. Washington doesn''t know where, and isn''t sure precisely when. But the Cabinet is sufficiently alarmed that War Secretary Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox are authorized to send an immediate and coded “warning of war” to American bases and units in harm''s way.

In Shanghai two cruise ships are chartered and eight hundred armed American Marines of the 4th Regiment (serving in China since the Boxer Rebellion) are marched through the great port city with enormous pomp and circumstance, about to embark for Manila.

Another two hundred Marines, unable to reach Shanghai, and serving in small garrisons and posts from Peking to Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, are caught short by this “warning of war.”

This is their story. Of how a detachment of American Marines marooned in North China as war erupts set out on an epic march through hostile territory in an attempt to fight their way out of China and, somehow, rejoin their Corps for the war against Japan.

James Brady dazzles us once again with a stunning and unflinching look at America at war. Warning of War is a moving tribute to sheer courage, determination, and Marine Corps discipline, and is a wonderful celebration of America in one of its darkest but finest hours.

Publishers Weekly

A Marine veteran of the Korean conflict, Brady (The Marines of Autumn) has stormed publishing high ground to become, arguably, our foremost novelist currently writing on the subject of Marines at war. Here, the distinguished columnist and author brings under close scrutiny the sorry disarray of the U.S. military during the two months (beginning November 27, 1941, and ending Jan. 27, 1942) just before and after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor. Playing tennis by day with his friend, an American-born Japanese colonel, and by night enjoying posh clubs with his White Russian mistress, Marine Capt. Billy Port, a Back Bay Bostonian, sees his pampered life among the cosmopolitan set in exotic, Japanese-occupied Shanghai come to an abrupt halt on November 27, 1941, when FDR orders the complete evacuation of all Marines stationed in China under an official "warning of war." A decorated veteran of the 1920s Nicaraguan campaign, Port is given the task of taking a rifle squad of combat-seasoned Marines and rounding up a scattering of isolated detachments and leading them over the Great Wall and across the Gobi into icy Siberia. Taking his personal majordomo, a naval lieutenant, a French former Grand Prix race driver, and an exiled White Russian general, he loads four military trucks and his own Bentley touring car aboard a rusty Portuguese ship and sails north to rescue the isolated Marines, unaware that his Japanese tennis partner will become his relentless pursuer. Authentic atmospherics and crackling action are sure to keep fans turning the pages of this newest Brady combat thriller, which succeeds equally as entertainment, history and morality lesson. (Apr. 10) Forecast: The Marines of August was a New York Times bestseller, and Brady's latest looks likely to follow in its footsteps. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.