Footsteps to Forever: A World War II Thriller
by R. Samuel Baty

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Description

            Footsteps, like Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and Wouk’s The Winds of War, is a story filled with suspense, romance, and sudden violence. It is 1941, only days after the attack at Pearl Harbor plunges America into the war. Two young U.S. Army lieutenants – Jennifer Haraldsson, a beautiful nurse, and Jonathan Partude, who falls in love with her almost at first sight – receive a secret assignment from Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall to rescue a top U.S. nuclear physicist from Norway, which has been occupied by German forces.     

            President Roosevelt, warned that the Germans might be on the verge of developing terrible new atomic weapons, had asked the elderly Nobel Laureate, James Flannigan, to spy on a plant in Norway believed to be producing the “heavy water” needed for the manufacture of such weapons.

            Haraldsson and “Dude” Partude, who are fluent in Norwegian and excellent skiers, must find Flannigan and help him escape across treacherous mountains to the seacoast, where they expect to be picked up by a waiting submarine. All three are fully aware that the ailing Flannigan must not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.

            Chased by the enemy, hampered by the physicist’s deteriorating health, impacted by a blossoming romance, and faced with harsh winter conditions, the two young Americans and their allies struggle to avoid disaster.  An epic battle occurs at the water’s edge – with results that echo throughout the novel.      

            The explosive action of Footsteps soon expands to use the whole war-torn world as its stage, with action scenes involving the doomed Allied raid at Dieppe, the Russian Front, the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and ferocious air battles in the Pacific.

            In addition to Roosevelt and Marshall, the cast of characters features Winston Churchill as well as other real people who were among the most important leaders of that most crucial era. (Of course, the need for a desperate attempt to prevent an enemy from developing nuclear weapons is as relevant today as it was then.) Fictional characters with significant roles include an American fighter pilot, a British Special Operations officer, overworked medical personnel, and a pair of German officers -- one cruel, the other surprisingly tender-hearted.   

            As World War II rages to a dramatic conclusion, human emotions smolder, clouded by issues of conscience and morality. Survivors meet again – enemies as well as friends – in ways both dreamed of and quite shocking.