The final year of the Pacific campaign is often highly compressed in military history books. But, although America was at the zenith of its military power in that year, it was a time of horrifically mounting casualties on island after island—leading up to the ultimate invasion of the Japanese home islands. Especially after VE Day, American war weariness and the impulse to bring the boys home sapped the political will to see the war through to unconditional surrender.
If it did nothing else, this great book would serve to dispel the myth that Japan was on the brink of surrender, and would have done anything but fight to the death had atomic weapons not finally ended the war. Moreover, the authors make clear that even the direst estimates of American combat casualties in an invasion were too low. They describe in detail how the enemy knew exactly where we were coming ashore on the island of Kyushu, and had almost twice as many soldiers on the island as American intelligence assumed he would. Implacable Foes is an important contribution to our understanding of the war’s terminal phase.
For you or the Baker Street Irregular whom you love this Christmas: the Mysterious Press here in New York has published a massive cultural history of the Sherlock Holmes character from his first appearance in 1887 to the wildly post-modern Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman television episodes of today. But wait, there’s more: Mattias Bostrom’s From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon is translated from the Swedish—such is the universality of love for Holmes and Watson. And what a brilliant translation (by one Michael Gallagher) it is! Conan Doyle’s building of the character has never been better told, and the peregrinations of the copyrights down through the years form virtually a novel in itself.
Moreover, the stories of all the great actors who’ve essayed Holmes on the stage, movies and TV are endlessly fascinating in their own right. My introduction was the Ronald Howard half-hour TV series, which launched in the U.S. around my 11th birthday in 1954. I took one look at “The Red-Headed League” and I’ve been a goner ever since. (And don’t neglect, this holiday season, to sit down with the family and watch the Holmes comedy Without a Clue starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. It’s a howl: Conan Doyle’s last surviving daughter loved it, as will you.)
© 2017 Nick Murray. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Nick reviews current books, articles and research findings in his monthly newsletter, Nick Murray Interactive. His latest book is Around the Year with Nick Murray.