A Debt of War is a work of fiction in the historical genre. It is aimed at adult readers and was penned by Michael Ringering. The book follows publisher Paul Bacca as he is approached by a strange veteran at his mother’s funeral. Presented with an unpublished manuscript that his mother wished him to have, reading the manuscript and researching the truth of it reveals a family secret that shakes the foundations of Paul’s life as he learns about an impossible friendship between two enemies who found themselves in debt to each other, a debt that would put them in each other’s lives forever.

War is, by its very nature, an inhumane beast. Real people with dreams and aspirations are placed in uniform and fed into a hellish world where they quickly become anonymous statistics in a report and later in a history book. It’s an injustice to those who died that they did so only to become a footnote in a textbook, but it is an injustice that Michael Ringering seeks to put right with this book. Exploring how even bitter enemies out to kill each other can find humanity between them, this book is a reminder that wars are fought by real people, each with vivid and complex lives and feelings. A Debt of War does not blink as it examines the extreme ways that conflict molds the people forced to live through it. As such, I recommend it highly to those interested in military fiction that focuses less on the glory of conflict and more on its humanity.

As the family is leaving the burial service, a mysterious man in a military uniform decorated with the story of war and service is seen at the fresh grave of Paul Bacca’s mother. He is holding a crudely wrapped package. Later the man arrives at the family home, explaining that he had known Paul's mother for many years. The package he held is a manuscript, a novel written by an acclaimed poet. It was Paul’s mother’s dying wish that it be delivered to the family. Paul is a publisher and is skeptical that such a well-known poet had authored a novel and not published it. But he agrees to read it … and the story within a story begins. Puzzled by the very detailed and poignant story he has read, Paul confronts the stranger and learns secrets of his family’s history revealed in the novel, the truth of friendships and lives entwined in mutual debts owed among enemies. The stranger’s revelations of the truths hidden in the manuscript change Paul’s life and the lives of his siblings forever.

Michael Ringering has created a masterly work in his novel, Debt of War. In a story within a story, Ringering blends the mystery of an unpublished manuscript, which puzzles the family of Paul Bacca with its curious delivery and its contents, with the deeply emotional personal soldiers’ experiences of the horrors of combat, the gut-wrenching experiences of the victims of war, and the mirror image experiences of the enemies – all victims of their circumstances. I repeat the word 'experiences' because it is the core of the emotions, reactions, and the entwined, all-enveloping love that reading Debt of War engenders. The rough and tumble interactions of soldiers in deadly combat with its “foxhole humor” and incidents twist the lives and fortunes of captors and prisoners into mutual struggles to survive, some successful, others tragically not successful. Herein grows the debt of war among the soldiers. The mysterious manuscript is explained, and its true author revealed in a conclusion that rivals the tales of William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry. The comparison is not offered lightly as Michael Ringering has earned it fair and square with this brilliant, compelling tale of the entanglements of life and death – and the debts to be paid.