Shattered Jade

From New York Times bestselling author Larry Alexander comes a gritty historical novel of World War II, told through the eyes of soldiers on both sides of the firing line.

Tarawa was hell but Saipan is worse.

For Sergeant Pete “Hardball” Talbot, recently returned from being wounded on Tarawa seven months earlier, Saipan is just another battle as the United States leaps island to island towards an invasion of the Japanese homeland.

But the Japanese have learned, all too well, how to defend their islands, with carefully constructed and concealed bunkers and machine gun nests. Talbot and the dozen men of Second Squad have no idea they are running headlong into thirty-five thousand Japanese soldiers who have sworn to fight to the last man.

In vivid, startling detail, Shattered Jade explores the strategy and horror of battle in one of World War II’s most brutal conflicts and illuminates the extraordinary courage of ordinary young men.

Larry Alexander has been a columnist for the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., a newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, since 1993. He retired from the paper in 2015. While with Lancaster Newspapers, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 and has won state-level journalism awards. His first book, Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers, was published in 2005 and made the New York Times bestseller list. He followed up his first success with Shadows in the Jungle: The Alamo Scouts behind Japanese Lines in World War II and In the Footsteps of the Band of Brothers: A Return to Easy Company’s Battlefields with Sgt. Forrest Guth, both published in 2010. He then coauthored A Higher Call with journalist and historian Adam Makos, which also made the New York Times and international bestsellers lists, and Bloody Ridge and Beyond with Marlin Groft.