Look Away

Rating:
Summary: A pretty stiff period piece
Review: This book is something of a change for Harlold Coyle who has shown a talent in previous novels for making the technicalities of weapons systems an integral part of his military oriented stories. He seems less comfortable dealing with war in a historical period, where the men were clearly more complex than the guns and the outcome of the war is a forgone conclusion. I read this book with some interest, but nothing like the attention I was used to with one of Coyle's books. I just didn't feel like his heart was in it. Unlike Shelby Foote, who writes about the Civil War as if he had seen it with his own eyes, Coyle's book seems to be made up of whole cloth. One doesn't even sense a great deal of historical research behind the writing. Of course, just because I don't see it doesn't mean it wasn't done, but something about the subject and its presentation just seems inappropriate for Coyle's personal talents.