Harmon General – Review

What makes Harmon General such a good piece of historical fiction? Story! Story! Story!

Seldom have I ever read a story with such a breakneck pace to the climax! You’ll know when you get to that part because you won’t be able to stop reading. The author uses the first two-thirds of the book to set everything up, just like someone setting up a room full of dominoes. Then, without notice, she tips that first domino over, and the action is non-stop to the climax near the end of the story!

The Setting and Characters of Harmon General

Set in Longview, Texas, during World War II, Harmon General is a new army hospital quickly constructed to care for thousands of U.S. military personnel either wounded in battle or victim of disease, such as malaria. Add to that the crude oil resources of the region and a new pipeline to get that oil to tankers destined for our troops overseas. This setting provides some realistic insight into the dangers that could have lurked in our homeland, unknown to the general public, and handled by secretive heroes

These secretive heroes dominate the cast of Harmon General. But we couldn’t have secretive heroes without similarly secretive villains! They had disguises that blended in with the setting like chameleons in a tree – a store owner, a nurse, even a prestigious medical doctor, among others.

This story covered all the bases: small town life, racism in the South, skeletons in closets, period vehicles with grinding gears and flat tires, family values, love, jealousy, danger, the ever present smell of oil, and the list goes on.

Technically Speaking

The pacing was awesome, especially over the last half of the novel. The character arcs were good and genuine.

Unfortunately, I do have to comment on SPAG – spelling, punctuation and grammar. This story is inundated with SPAG errors. Luckily, with such a good story, the overall impact of these errors is minimal – at least to me. For the most part, these errors consist of missing words or extra words that were obviously left in after an edit. I’d venture to say there were at least dozens of these errors throughout the story.

There were a few other small things, such as an anachronism that briefly took me out of the story, but I don’t particularly want to mention or dwell on them. Kimberly Fish wrote a very compelling story, and I highly recommend it to everyone!

This is the second book in the Misfits and Millionaires series. Although this story can stand on it’s own, I think it was even more enjoyable for me because I read the first book, The Big Inch.

Rest assured that I will be at the front of the line when the next installment of this series is released!

(If you are so inclined, please take a peek at my review of The Big Inch before deciding which book to start with!)