The Lost Patrol

by John R. McKay Book 4 in the Manner of Men series.

First published 2026

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4.0(9)

Belgium, December 1944. As the German Ardennes offensive breaks through American positions, Lieutenant Sean Harris and his men are caught in a rapidly changing battlefield. A routine visit leaves senior officers stranded behind enemy lines, and when further men sent to retrieve them disappear, Harris turns a small patrol back into the freezing countryside to find the missing soldiers.

The rescue mission and recurring characters are fictional, while the surrounding Battle of the Bulge and the westward advance of Kampfgruppe Peiper provide the historical framework. McKay uses the confusion of collapsing roads, shifting front lines, winter conditions and German armoured penetration to create a survival story in which the patrol has little reliable knowledge of where friendly forces end and enemy-held territory begins.