The Letter Bearer

The Letter Bearer by Robert Allison is an adult, historical fiction novel set in
 World War II.

We join the main character, The Rider, waking up from unconsciousness. He finds himself injured, stranded in the middle of an African Desert, alone. The only thing The Rider is aware of is the carnage around him.

The Letter Bearer embraces themes such as survival, companionship and urgency whilst showing WWII in it's true form, devastation.

This book has really good points going for it. For example, the author, Robert Allison, portrays the WWII battles in the African Desert, truthfully. The book can be rather graphic with it's scenes of violence or betrayal. Unlike other historical novels, The Letter Bearer does not 'dress up' the devastation of World War Two. As well as this, it describes the impact on the soldiers involved in a truly stunning way. The author is selfless in respects because of his honesty and grit he has compounded into his novel.

Another good feature in this book is the use of language. The language is complex and the author uses this with great effect to capture the surrounding settings for the reader. The story line keeps moving and unfolding. This is one of the only books I have read recently where I still had no idea how the book would end even up to that moment. The ending was a complete surprise along with the rest of events in the book.

Unfortunately, I had one major problem with this book that was only resolved over half way through. I found it very hard to distinguish between all the characters. For me there was only two distinct personalities in this book. The main character, The Rider and Lance Corporal Swann. This book lacked character descriptions which let it down. It felt like all the effort went into the personalities of two characters yet the other characters present were bland and similar to one another. Moreover, physical appearance description was pretty much non existent in this book. It led me to find imagining the different characters hard. Admittedly, I did get lost. Who is who?

Overall, I gave The Letter Bearer by Robert Allison a 3/5 stars. I honored the honesty of the Second World War portrayed in this novel. However, I found it incredibly hard to distinguish between all the characters.
I found The Letter Bearer, a pleasant, sometimes gripping read but it left me with a lot to be desired.