The Sword and the Scalpel

Harry Brand feels he can never live up to his military family’s illustrious past. So when he fails medical school in 1935, he takes himself off to Ethiopia to serve as a medical orderly with a Red Cross unit. In these sun-baked deserts, serving with the army of Hailie Selassie against the ambitions of Benito Mussolini, he gains first-hand knowledge of the horrors of war. It is here also, that he first makes the acquaintance of a woman who is to have a profound effect on the rest of his life.

Years later, he finds himself at war again, this time against Nazi Germany. Harry's instincts are all for the saving rather than the taking of lives, but now he must learn to kill to survive, just as he must learn to cope with the women who seek to dominate his life. The lovely, over-confident, infuriating Constance, the beautiful, sensual, tragic Nicole and the woman who keeps turning up in the oddest places, Marion all become strong forces to contend with. Harry’s service with a Red Cross unit during Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia establishes the series’ central conflict between healing and killing, which follows the Brand family into the war against Nazi Germany.