A long-forgotten jungle campaign takes on new life in the troubled mind of John Spenser, a missing soldier's son. Determined to restore the reputation of the scape-goated general who led the campaign, Spenser comes across a figure large enough to fill the shoes of his missing father. Out of that distant past, the aging veteran finally shows up hoping to heal old wounds, a homecoming that does not end well - for him, his son, or the woman he left behind. "It's not every day that I read a story about a man on the run with his recently deceased wife's ashes on the shotgun seat of a rental car, but Tom Doherty's swift, engrossing novel about a guy for whom life has proceeded mostly without complications - until he finds himself reckoning with his own damaging history - is a page-turner with the feel of an instant classic." -- Susanna Daniel, author of the PEN award winning novel, STILTSVILLE . "With one master-stroke after another, Thomas Doherty paints a picture so engaging and framed with such modest eloquence, that FATHER WAR reads like a compact, Americanized WAR AND PEACE. Whether writing about jungle combat, horse cavalry drills in the 1930s, or the denizens of a long-abandoned army training camp, Doherty is unflinchingly observant and psychologically at his characters' very hearts." -- Eric Larsen, author of AN AMERICAN MEMORY , winner of the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize.