John Amos’ “The Call of the Bugle”

A young war correspondent witnesses the catastrophic Charge of the Light Brigade and spends the next several decades haunted by what he saw and obsessed with uncovering why it happened in John Amos’ riveting new book, “The Call of the Bugle.”

In 1854, a young war correspondent witnesses the catastrophic Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava — 600 British cavalrymen riding straight into Russian guns. He survives. The question that haunts him: Why did they ride?

Years later, the aging reporter, struggling with alcoholism, sets out to uncover the truth about the disaster. Through forgotten diaries, long-hidden letters, and interviews with the daughters of the fallen, he pieces together the life and death of General Robert Dryden — who appeared to be smiling as he charged the gates of hell. But as the past resurfaces, the reporter must confront more than historical facts: the unquiet ghost of the general and the memory of a love he refuses to name.

“The Call of the Bugle” by author and former professor John Amos is a sweeping, multi-generational historical saga set against the stark reality of the Crimean War. It is a haunting meditation on valor and folly, memory and masculinity, and the unspoken costs of war.

Readers who love Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See” or Sebastian Faulks’s “Birdsong” will find in The “Call of the Bugle” the same fusion of meticulous historical research and devastating emotional truth.

SPIN Magazine assistant editor Charles Moss calls the book “a sweeping, haunting, historical epic that methodically pulled me in and refused to let go.” And Graham Watts, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, said, “The scent of gunpowder and the sense of heroism spreads through ‘The Call of the Bugle’ like a sizzling fuse.”

The Call of the Bugle

Publisher: Imagination Press

ISBN-13: ‎979-8950191015

Available from https://www.amazon.com/Call-Bugle-John-Amos/dp/B0H258WCV1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Amos, Ph.D., J.D., is the author of five novels, including the Petrie & Pettigrew series, which follows two brilliant detectives through the archaeology, intrigue, and buried secrets of Egypt, Syria, and the ancient world.

A practicing attorney and university professor with 25 years in the classroom, Amos brings an intellectual depth to popular fiction. He has lived and worked extensively in the Middle East — Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, and Turkey — and that immersion in culture, language, and history gives his novels authenticity. His academic publications span law, history, and Middle Eastern studies. He writes for readers who want to be entertained and to learn something true about the world.

Visit https://www.authorjohnamos.com/.

Oct. 9, 2026

Dea Shandera-Hunter

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