Tess Durbeyfield is a luminous beauty who is violated by one man and forsaken by another, but she refuses to remain a victim. Her struggle to endure despite the abandonment of her true love, and despite her desperate attempt to attain happiness, propels Tess toward a tragic end.

Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call are now young men dealing with the ever increasing tensions of adult life-- Gus with his great love, Clara, and Call with Maggie, the young prostitute who is in love with him. McCrae and Call join a Ranger troop in pursuit of three outlaws: Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump, Comanche horse thief Kicking Wolf and Ahumado, the deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for slow torture. Together, they struggle...

The extraordinary experiences of three men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain forests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day.