Book Note: W.E.B. Griffin, Semper Fi

This is book 1 of the "The Corps" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Another different Griffin series. This one jumps back to before the US was in WWII (January, 1941), and to an American Marine detachment in Shanghai, China.

After about the second book, Griffin starts jumping around in time; perhaps because he saw the end coming (though he wasn't that close to the end of the war in the second book) and wanted to leave himself more space to play with. Or perhaps just because he thought it'd worked well with the Brotherhood of War series (where The Berets, The Aviators, and The New Breed were interpolated into the original rank-based sequence.)

Nice character development, and nice depiction of various times and places (including China as seen through US Marine eyes, and a little bit about it as seen through missionary eyes as well).

Most amusing bit of fore-shadowing: (p. 313) "But there's no reason he can't leave here Wednesday night, Thursday morning at the latest. Presuming there's not 50 people ahead of him in San Francisco also with AAA priority, that should put him in Pearl no later than Monday, December 8th [1941]".