Judy Schultz

In 1941, a young man imagines thrilling battles and heroic acts when he lies about his age and joins the army. ?Assigned to the Winnipeg Grenadiers, part of the Canadian army in Hong Kong, Freddy McKee becomes a prisoner of war six weeks after arriving in Hong Kong. Five years pass and Freddy finally returns home from the war, but three women—Joanna Keegan, her daughter Hope, and the beautiful and mysterious Su Li—feel echoes of Freddy’s ordeal in each of their lives. For Freddy, the memory of war is a heavier burden than the weapon he once carried. Freddy must fight to survive in a world that has left him behind. “Veterans traditionally have never shared the hell of their war. Often the only way to get close to their experiences is via skillful fiction. Gritty and well-researched, Freddy’s War takes us to the siege of Hong Kong and back.” —Ted Barris, author and military historian “Wartime love stories are the stuff of cliché, but there’s no false sentimentality in Freddy’s War. With a cool reporter’s eye, Schultz draws on her deep knowledge of China, and of prairie social history, to craft an understated, elegaic story of loneliness, loss, and dislocation.” —Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal

Freddy's War

Some soldiers claimed to have a good war. Others were not so lucky. In 1939, Freddy McKee is fifteen-years-old when the war in Europe breaks out. His imagination is bursting with the glamour of thrilling battles and heroic acts from the games he played as a child, so two years later Freddy lies about his age and joins the army. Freddy is assigned to the Winnipeg Grenadiers, a companion battalion to the Royal Rifles of Canada that formed C Force, the Canadian army in Hong Kong. Six weeks after arriving in Hong Kong, Freddy becomes a prisoner of war. Collateral damage extends beyond the battlefield and far beyond the years men spend in combat. Freddy's war reverberates in the lives of others as far as Edmonton's Chinatown and the small town of Trout Creek, Manitoba. Three women who love Freddy -- Joanna Keegan, her daughter Hope, and a mysterious Chinese woman named Su Li -- feel the time Freddy spent in Hong Kong in each of their lives. Freddy's war is heavier than the weapon he once carried. It stretches past the walls of his once prison. Freddy's war touches his friends and family, and lingers, haunting each -- a reminder -- for the rest of their lives.

Mary Bailey

Celebrate the best of Alberta's culinary, home-grown slow food. The Food Lover's Trail Guide to Alberta will make even the armchair traveler hungry for the road. This is the motherlode of appetizing information-a must for every glove box, briefcase and bookshelf.

Judy Schultz

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