WAR BABIES is probably my least favorite Frederick Busch book so far, and I think I've read a dozen or more of his 27 books by now. The subject here is the residue of the Korean War, or "conflict," as it was officially known. But it was a war, make no mistake, and it had far-reaching personal consequences in countless families from all the countries involved. I learned that the book was initially serialized in two parts (in slightly different form) in a magazine. Maybe that was the problem. It just seemed too damn short. There wasn't enough background - or follow-through - to make me care for either of the book's protagonists. Well, I cared for poor Peter. It was Hillary that was problematic. I could never quite figure her out, and I couldn't bring myself to like her. And Fox, the British Sergeant-Major survivor of the prison camps, well, he just seemed like a sick, twisted pervert. No one would have liked him! I could kinda guess what it was all about - man's inhumanity to man; the cruelties of war, twisted psyches brought about by war, etc. The Busch touch is there, certainly, with all of the usual preoccupations with the darker side of man. But the truth is, I was just glad to get to the end and be done with it. I liked parts of it - the human, vulnerable side of Peter, mostly - but it just didn't quite measure up to Busch's usual high standards. This was NOT typical Fred Busch. ( )