A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025

In December 1944, as German forces launched their surprise counterattack in the Ardennes, U.S. Army Private Jim Tanzer was carrying a rifle. He didn’t expect to fire it.

Jim is an enlisted entertainer in the Army’s Morale Corps (MOS 442)—one of the little-known performers sent to sustain the morale of combat infantry at the front, where the USO could not go.

Assigned to a Jeep show unit led by fellow enlisted entertainer Mickey Rooney, Jim performs for weary soldiers just a mile or two from the fighting. It’s risky duty—but still safer than combat.

Until it isn’t.

Jim is older than most privates and never expected to be there. A former show-business dropout, he could have stayed home on a fatherhood deferment. His wife is furious he enlisted—and no longer answers his letters. Now, instead of song-and-dance routines, Jim is navigating checkpoints, nervous sentries, and the creeping realization that the war may not respect his assignment.

When Jim is caught in the opening moments of the German offensive that will become the Battle of the Bulge, his war changes instantly.

Ordered to carry a captured German map back to VIII Corps Headquarters, Jim must stay ahead of advancing SS divisions—and avoid being shot by jittery American sentries along the way.

Three days later, supporting the exhausted 101st Airborne at Bastogne, Jim’s chances of surviving shrink by the hour. Then General McAuliffe orders a Christmas Day mission that becomes Jim’s ultimate test.

Sure, his marriage—and all his troubles—will be over if he’s killed in action.

But what if he’s captured? What if he runs?

The show must go on. But how long can Jim hold off the final curtain?