Okay, I'm struggling. This book and me? We were not off to a good start and that solely happened because my brain read "south, ww1, trenches" and did not think South of the U.S. but Southern England. Well, that was my fault, it heightened my expectations and I expected, one, a different setting, and two (don't ask me how I got that impression) some British gangster vibes. Needless to say I was left wanting for both and receiving neither. This is not the book's fault, however, and I am and was aware of that, which is why I pushed through all 400-something pages of this. And that's what I am most disappointed about. Almost 500 pages and I could summarise the plot in 3 sentences, tops. "But the spice?" you could ask and I am no reader rejecting spice for the lack of plot but I'm sorry to say: not even close enough to make up for that length. And I'm afraid that is not the only part worth criticising. Dear Authors, if you choose a nickname for your MC in a foreign language, please, for the love of all linguists, make sure you don't mess with the spelling and have your readers suffer due to the same error over and over and over again. (Le Sauvage vs. Le Savauge) And while we're at it: turns of phrase used should somehow have some type of connection to the previous sentence in a dialogue and why would you use those if they don't have any relation to the previous part and thus are completely ill-suited. My inner Monk is throwing a tantrum and this book is the reason why. I'm giving 2 stars simply because I had falsely directed expectations and somehow feel bad about that, but the second part of my review would otherwise have resulted in one star, so...