About the Author

Jeff Shaara is the New York Times bestselling author of A Chain of Thunder, A Blaze of Glory, The Final Storm, No Less Than Victory, The Steel Wave, The Rising Tide, To the Last Man, The Glorious Cause, Rise to Rebellion, and Gone for Soldiers, as well as Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure—two novels that complete the Civil War trilogy that began with his father’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, The Killer Angels. Shaara was born into a family of Italian immigrants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and graduated from Florida State University. He lives in Gettysburg.

Reviews

“The indelible panorama [Jeff] Shaara paints . . . draws us into the horror and heroism of war.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Magnificent . . . Intense, compelling, and thoroughly researched, this is much more than just an excellent historical novel.”—Library Journal

“Pounding with fierce action and human drama, and packed with accurately rendered history, The Steel Wave is an eye-opening reminder of the bitterly high price that combat soldiers have always been called upon to pay.”—St. Petersburg Times

“In this great, often moving novel of conflict, [Jeff] Shaara channels the roiling experiences of men in the midst of a tumultuous enterprise whose outcome was by no means certain.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Stirring . . . Shaara [is the] master of the war novel.”—Chicago Tribune

This keystone of the bestselling WWII trilogy dramatizes D-Day and ups the bar for military historicals, demonstrating that Shaara (The Rising Tide) has hit full stride. The epic-scale novel opens on January 25, 1944, with British commandos gathering soil samples on Omaha Beach to assess landing sites. Shaara gives the Americans, called "the great waves of steel" by the Germans, their due portion in the grisly, brutal Allied invasion, and the experiences of the grunt soldiers--most notably the indefatigable U.S. Army Sgt. Jesse Adams--offers a field-level view of D-Day and afterward, generating more suspenseful reading than the matter-of-fact accounts of the big-brass dealings of Eisenhower and Churchill. The Allied leaders' personalities emerge with agile clarity, while German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel embodies "the good soldier" laboring under a delusional Hitler and German High Command ensconced in cozy Berlin. Rommel's ambivalent complicity in the assassination plot on Hitler is convincingly rendered and paves the way for the final act. The muscular prose, deft sense of military drama and relentless pacing are well suited for this crackerjack saga. (May) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

"The indelible panorama [Jeff] Shaara paints . . . draws us into the horror and heroism of war."-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Magnificent . . . Intense, compelling, and thoroughly researched, this is much more than just an excellent historical novel."-Library Journal

"Pounding with fierce action and human drama, and packed with accurately rendered history, The Steel Wave is an eye-opening reminder of the bitterly high price that combat soldiers have always been called upon to pay."-St. Petersburg Times

"In this great, often moving novel of conflict, [Jeff] Shaara channels the roiling experiences of men in the midst of a tumultuous enterprise whose outcome was by no means certain."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Stirring . . . Shaara [is the] master of the war novel."-Chicago Tribune