3 out of 4 stars
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The Warramunga's War by Greg Kater is a war story which showcased the lives of two Australian soldiers who found each other even in the midst of the chaos. In the year 1941, while fighting in the battle and at the same time trying not to get killed, Major James Munro heard the voice of an Australian soldier, Corporal Jack O'Brien who was also half Warramungan, whispering his name behind him and that was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Theirs was a friendship between a man who had had it in no other way apart from the city life of Australia (Jamie) and one who had had a taste of both worlds (Jacko). At first, Jamie was a bit resistant to Jacko especially when he kept addressing him as Captain which he was a bit irritated by until Jacko proved himself indispensable when he displayed his exceptional sense of direction by gunning an enemy soldier down in a state of invisibility.
Jamie who later survived a gunshot wound sustained from shots fired by the enemy troops, couldn't think of a better person other than his Warramungan friend, Jacko, when he was promoted to Captain and needed a partner to join him on an espionage mission in Cairo, Egypt. This mission brought the two soldiers in contact with the other team members Johnny Cook a British soldier and another Australian soldier Matthew MacAulay but one of these men turned out to be a monster.
For a war story, Greg Kater did a wonderful job of leaving out gory details of the war scenes as much as possible, which is one of the reasons why this book was quite easy and less scary for me to read. Also, the subtle inclusion of a budding love story between Jacko and Monique without drawing too much attention to them made the story more interesting for me.
Greg Kater also showed his love for music through the character Jamie. He was able to carry his readers along by including the music sheet of a song Jamie played on his guitar to the delight of his friends, which is something I enjoyed and believe readers who are music lovers would enjoy too.
However, I would have loved it if the author added more twists to the plot of the story as I felt it could use more of those and would have made the novel a better page turner rather than the near smooth run the story had.
Also, as much as it was interesting that Greg Kater added some Australian vernacular to the mix, I felt he could have found a way to add a bit of translation to languages such as French that were used in the book which is why I would rate it "3 out of 4 stars".
For his first work of fiction, I believe this book was professionally edited as little to no error was encountered while I read. Therefore, I would recommend it to anyone who is open to war stories, crime and anyone who is interested in learning about new cultures such as was showcased in this book. However, I would not suggest this book to underaged readers because of the curse words used occasionally by the characters.
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The Warramunga's War
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