The Thin Red Line, originally published in September 1962,[2] shares its central characters with Jones's other two World War II novels, though with their names necessarily altered, and examines their different reactions to combat.

Kipling's poem is based on the 1854 action of British soldiers during the Crimean War called The Thin Red Line (Battle of Balaclava).

Kirkus Reviews praised the novel in 1962, commenting that the novel's "well-drawn battle narrative provides take-off points for dozens of character studies, and the author describes emotional responses to battle, fear, death, homosexuality, along with detached, ironic comments on army organization and the workings of fate, luck and circumstance".

Some, myself included, would place the novel in the domain of literary naturalism because the destinies of Jones's soldiers are determined by chance and by social, economic, psychological, and political forces beyond their control and, sometimes, even beyond their recognition".

[5] British historian and military writer John Keegan nominated The Thin Red Line as, in his opinion, one of only two novels portraying Second World War combat that could be favorably compared to the best of the literature to arise from the First World War (the other was Flesh Wounds (1966) by British writer David Holbrook).