Love And Honor

Patrick Anderson

You will rarely come across a novel that contains more thrills and spills, more unabashed melodrama, more moments of heroism followed by corny comic relief. Yet if it is true that cliches abound, it is also true that the book is well written, well researched and, if approached with an innocent heart, endless fun.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

In this overwrought drama by novelist and screenwriter Wallace (Braveheart; Pearl Harbor; etc.), America is pitted against the European powers-only it's not the age of electronic eavesdropping and weapons of mass destruction but the year 1774, with razor-sharp sabers and good old-fashioned ear-to-the-door spycraft reigning supreme. Benjamin Franklin sends Kieran Selkirk, a young, courageous Virginia-born soldier, to Russia in the hopes of persuading Catherine the Great to spurn British requests for soldiers to help suppress the American colonies' rebellion. With the aid of disgraced Russian nobleman Gorlov, Selkirk blazes a triumphant path through the snowy Russian landscape, garnering acclaim for his military prowess and bold tongue. In true big-screen fashion, he bravely battles wolves in the harsh countryside on a breathless sleigh dash, fights Cossacks, learns of British intrigue, encounters beautiful women from almost every European nation and spreads good wherever he goes. Wallace writes with a melodramatic hand, as if every word carries great import, and his characters are either cartoonish or underdeveloped, with few leaving an impression. Readers will find it a stretch to believe that this single American, despite his quick blade and quicker mind, can really change the destiny of his homeland. Still, the novel should make a fine movie. Agent, Mel Berger. (Sept. 9) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A dashing colonial American officer travels to Russia to persuade Catherine the Great not to help the British defeat the American rebellion. You know Russia's a tough place when 24-year-old Captain Keiran Selkirk, en route to St. Petersburg, watches his boisterous comrade in arms, Count Gorlov, save their sleigh from a pack of wolves by tossing a hapless passenger over the side. From such gory beginnings, screenwriter (Braveheart; Pearl Harbor) and novelist Wallace (So Late Into the Night, 1983, etc.) introduces a Russia of 1774 that is almost comically brutal, ludicrously sentimental, unknowably vast, riddled with rebellion, and so intensely bound up in European intrigues that it's a wonder Benjamin Franklin would send only one man to argue against a British plan to acquire 20,000 Russian troops for keeping order in the American colonies. Captain Selkirk is unspeakably handsome, a superb fighter (he polishes off a band of marauding Cossacks), reasonably adept at several languages, and a widower-perfect for the scheming females hovering about Catherine's court. Invited immediately to the French ambassador's ball, he becomes infatuated with the daughter of the British ambassador, Lord Settlefield, who seems aware of Selkirk's mission but won't reveal how Selkirk will be thwarted. Then Selkirk and Gorlov are asked to protect a gaggle of young aristocratic females. That trip runs afoul of Cossacks and, after performing with suitable bravery, Selkirk is saved from certain death by the bravery of Beatrice, a servant to one of the Russian princesses. Before Selkirk's burgeoning romantic interest in Beatrice can develop, however, he and Gorlov are sent by Potemkin to put down a Cossackrebellion. Selkirk slices a Cossack in half but almost dies from a bullet wound. His bravery wins him an audience with Catherine the Great-in her bedchamber. Will Selkirk's homespun innocence, spunk, and naivete triumph on this very different battlefield?Breezily paced and improbably plotted costume epic, with an ending only Hollywood could love. Agent: Mel Berger/William Morris