The notion of Israel entering into a deceptive covenant with Antichrist is a key end-time prophecy mentioned in Daniel 9:27 and Isaiah 10:20; 28:14-18. My great grandmother told me that most of the young men of Sheffield died in that battle and it took a long time for the city to recover. Every house was in mourning. The book gave us the contrast between the years of preparation and the moment of destruction of a single generation of a cities’ population on 1 July 1916. If you can picture this scene in many towns and cities throughout England and the British Empire with all their young men dead or wounded you will then understand why they changed the rules and never again allow regiments of men from the same city. This is a classic literary offering with all the delicious quandaries and insights. I love to read books written by men about men... they are so much more authentic than books about men written by women or vice versa. This has the same flavor that "A Prayer for Owen Meany" had.

Ben's character is well done. Although I often dislike books where the main character does a lot of soul searching, in this instance it was compelling. I also loved the character of his mother. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy a good murder mystery, but even more if you're interested in truth, innocence, and the limits of the law.Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers, who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge (assault) will not reach us when it passes by, for we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception. It says we have made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell. They have done this because they have made lies their refuge, and try to hide under falsehoods. It says it plainly in Hosea chapter 10:13 that “ ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way…” We Have Made a Covenant with Death

There must come to every man who is part of an apparatus a moment when the apparatus functions without him, in spite of him, unheeding; the moment when he must say, You take the king’s shilling, you fight the king’s war. Either that or he deserts. But the moment is a hard one. You join up because they need a man and you think you are a good one, and suddenly you are not a man at all but one small dumb erg in a monstrous blind force.It follows a Pals Company - all from the same town or place of work - from the excitment and fervour of joining up, though the trials of training, and on to the battlefield. They were young, and ignorant of war abd all it's horrors, and their zeal carried them forward into a man-made hell on earth.

Ringing phrases. Subject, verb, object. The adjective is the death of the noun. The adverb is the death of the verb. Well, no. It was a rich world and a rich tongue and why impoverish either? Why kill? Why demean? Why prune and slash and dominate? In what fear? Why geld?" It's an old time courtroom drama about a man accused of killing his beautiful flirtatious wife in small town Soledad City, and the newly appointed young judge Ben Lewis (who while struggling with plenty of his own personal problems) will be called upon to make sure justice is served in his case. Ben Lewis is young for a judge. He was appointed by the governor as a favor to his dead father. Sometimes he doubts his ability as a judge and facing the most important trial of his career others do also. The trial concerns the murder of a beautiful woman. Her husband, who was drunk at the time, found her and immediately became the chief suspect. The case seems open and shut, but is it? Torn by his love needs and suddenly saddled with having to judge what has become a complex case, without clear precedent, Ben learns as much about the purpose of the law and its relation to society, as he learns about himself. Then Paul explained it to the Romans, your similar question. You can read the whole chapter I paraphrased:

Your treaty with death will be dissolved; your agreement with Sheol will not last. When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by, you will be overrun by it.