Williams’ World War II spy thriller brings to life a shadowy world of espionage, Nazis and secret agents.
In 1933, Boston socialite Claire’s domineering industrial tycoon father inexplicably sends her mother away from their home. Claire goes to live with her aunt Noreen until, nearly a decade later, as World War II rages, Claire returns home. She finds her father as unpleasant as ever and embroiled in business with a mysterious and off-putting foreigner named Carsten Reiniger. Claire’s suspicions are confirmed when she and Noreen are kidnapped by Reiniger and her father, who are both working for the Nazis. Tailed by the U.S. government, the women and their captors flee to Germany. But Claire soon discovers that Reiniger may not be what he seems, and she must try to decipher the mystery while attempting to escape with her aunt. Williams vividly evokes the pre-war and wartime eras, depicting days of chaos, confusion and uncertainty. Likewise, she is mostly successful in avoiding the trap of drawing the Nazi characters as cartoonish villains or goose-stepping stooges; Williams’ Nazis are real folks with all the foibles of ordinary people, making them that much more chilling. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Claire’s father, who is introduced as an unrepentant bad guy and never moves beyond that one-dimensional characterization. The narrative crackles with intensity in the beginning but slows once the women are abducted. The bulk of the novel, a chronicle of Claire and Noreen’s passage to Germany as captives, presents a travel itinerary peppered with dialogue between the principals. Including several more intriguing situations, in addition to the mystery of Reiniger’s allegiance, would further the theme of duplicity. The book does pick up steam at the end but ratcheting up the suspense and editing for brevity would have made this a taut, lean thriller. Excels at historic details and characterization but lacks intrigue.
Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-1468193084
Page Count: 454
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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