The Frozen Hours was published by Ballantine Books in 2017, Shaara’s Korean War novel focusing on the Battle of Chosin Reservoir — one of the most brutal engagements in American military history, fought in November–December 1950 when temperatures dropped to forty degrees below zero and Chinese forces outnumbered the surrounded Marines by four to one.
The novel follows the battle from its origins (MacArthur’s overconfident advance to the Yalu River, ignoring intelligence about Chinese intervention) through the seventeen-day fighting retreat that brought the Marines from the Chosin Reservoir to the coast at Hungnam — seventy-eight miles through frozen mountains, under constant attack, carrying their wounded and their dead.
Shaara’s perspectives include Marine commanders (Oliver Smith, who understood the danger before MacArthur would acknowledge it), Chinese commanders (who had their own impossible orders and supply problems), and enlisted Marines experiencing the particular horror of combat in conditions where the cold killed as surely as bullets — where weapons froze, morphine froze, blood froze before it could be staunched.
The Chosin Reservoir has a unique place in Marine Corps mythology: a defeat in strategic terms (the UN advance was thrown back hundreds of miles), but a victory in operational terms (the Marines broke out of encirclement, inflicted devastating casualties on the Chinese, and evacuated with their equipment and their honor). Shaara captures both aspects without either triumphalism or despair.
Collecting The Frozen Hours
First edition (Ballantine Books, New York, 2017): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $8–$18
- Signed first edition: $20–$50