Other characters are completely notional. Kanani Alana didn’t exist, but how I wish that she had. I like to imagine Hawaii celebrating her as a national hero. For her self-styled Hawaiian Pidgin English, I relied on novels by Milton Murayama, All I Asking for Is My Body (1975) and Plantation Boy (1998), as well as on the Internet, but especially on the dedicated work of Kent Sakoda (see Pidgin Grammar: An Introduction to the Creole Language of Hawaii, 2003). Previous versions of the manuscript had Kanani speaking hardcore Pidgin throughout—in the end, Kent Sakoda and other wise folks helped me realize that I should ease up on the Pidgin because it might distract the reader. The language dork and literary translator in me resisted, but common sense won out. In any case, all mistakes are my own.

Jock Quinn is also fictional, though millions of sincere yet troubled vets just like him served back then and continue to serve today. Surely, many traumatized vets like Wendell Lett existed, nabbed or not, tens of thousands of them having deserted during WWII and a number never returning. Where did they all go? A few were certainly pressured into severe and damning duties they found themselves all too suited for.

What was often called “combat fatigue” in the postwar years is unfortunately all too real. It has had many names and will remain with us as long as we kill our fellow human beings. Today we know it as PTSD, of course. For research, I’m grateful for The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2015) by David J. Morris as well as countless other sources, including a moving 1946 documentary by John Huston, Let There Be Light. The Army commissioned the film but tried banning it because the truths within were deemed too “demoralizing.” Find it if you can to gain a uniquely disturbing sense of the postwar period.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In addition to Kent Sakoda at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I’d like to thank the countless kind people who assisted me with research in Hawaii. They include Ermile Hargrove, Brandy Field, The Great Barusky, and so many others whose names I didn’t get.

I’m also deeply grateful to the perceptive test readers who slogged through earlier versions of this story and shared their thoughts—thank you a ton Dave Anderson; Gary Cruiser (whereabouts unknown); the crack team of Molly Holsapple, Sherry Cronin, and Lynn Greenwood; and to Mary Bisbee-Beek for her always wise advice. Special thanks to Beth Canova and Kim Lim at Skyhorse Publishing for their keen and invaluable guidance and to Peter Riva for suggesting General MacArthur’s postwar Pacific realm as Wendell Lett’s next destination.

As always, I thank my wife René for all her support and belief in me—and for introducing me to the amazing world of Hawaii.

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Wendell Lett’s nightmarish experience in WWII is told in my novel Under False Flags (2014).