Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Martin Roy Hill's anthology, "Duty", is a compilation of short stories with the common theme of duty to one's country. The cover story 'Duty' is a tale about the mythical red button that starts the atomic war, and the soldiers who are assigned the fatal duty. Another story may remind readers of the Cold War works of John LeCarre wherein aging spies from the U.S. and Russia meet for a final swap of information. Yet another tale concerns the ghostly presence of a murdered crewman aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the efforts of a civilian investigator to solve the mystery. 'Stragglers' is an intriguing account of soldiers from different wars in time, all lost and cognizant of their deaths, converging in a final march in unfamiliar surroundings. 

I was blown away by the power and intensity of the first tale and wondered how Hill could follow up that story. He did, and that too with flying colors. Each story has a main character you come to know and empathize with. Hill's writing is sparse but packs so much into each tale that you leave one story satisfied yet eager to dive into the next one. They are that good. The stories within "Duty" are both entertaining and thought-provoking, and extremely well-written. I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite out of the anthology and can't really recall enjoying a collection of short stories as much as I did these. I highly recommend "Duty", and I'll be looking for more works by Martin Roy Hill.