Elephant Run (review)

Nick Freestone's mother and stepfather agree that the German blitz has made London too dangerous a place for their son, so they send him off to his father's lumber plantation in Burma. Nick's arrival unfortunately coincides with the Japanese occupation of that country, and within days Jackson Freestone and several of his best workers are sent on a forced march to an internment camp, a pair of employees is executed, and Nick is placed under house arrest. Nick's treatment and his father's very survival are dependent on the vagaries of Japanese commander assignments, shifting political alliances within the local Burmese community, and most of all, a long-standing friendship between Hilltop—a longtime employee of the plantation, now turned monk—and Japanese sergeant Sonji, who becomes complicit in a plot to rescue the elder Freestone from his camp and spirit the Freestones and Hilltop's great-grandchildren out of the country. The Burmese setting and the role of elephants in the lumbering industry are exceptionally well integrated into this wartime adventure tale, and indeed the climax revolves around a dangerous bull elephant that quite inadvertently turns out to be the Freestones' savior. Suggest this title to fans of Graham Salisbury's World War II novels.