On D-Day the Das Reich, or 2nd Panzer Division, was at Montauban in southern France, 450 miles—and, supposedly, a few days—from the Normandy battlefront. Why, instead, "the Das Reich Division trickled into the rear battlefields piecemeal," some ten to 25 days later, is the spine on which Hastings (Yoni, Bomber Command) hangs an array of disclosures, insights, and reflections. The book is not narrative history—the actual march of the Das Reich begins a third of the way through, and is then told in snatches; and the interests it addresses—sometimes, profoundly—are not those of the ordinary WW II buff. First, Hastings focuses on the French Section of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE)—operating out of London and via agents in France—which, with little support from SHAEF (and that, at Churchill's insistence), supplied the Resistance forces with the wherewithal (equipment, training, money) to prevent the Das Reich from moving north by train and impede the column's progress by road. But the Germans also decided, to the surprise of the Allies, to fight the local resistants (Hitler would give no ground); and so delayed themselves. Few resistants, in turn, "understood fire discipline": they wasted ammunition and, under German counterattack, quickly took flight. (All the more remarkable, thinks Hastings, their accomplishments.) Uninvolved civilians, mostly apathetic or openly unsympathetic, then suffered German reprisals: notoriously, the killing of hostages after the Tulle insurrection, the unprovoked massacre at Oradour. Here, Hastings' findings are stark. "Painful though it may be for humanitarians to accept, a policy of unlimited repression can be formidably effective"; further immediate resistance was discouraged. And to the SS officers, hardened on the Russian front, "It was nothing"—as a veteran of Oradour put it long afterward. Hastings also has highly interesting, almost self-contained chapters on the inter-Allied Jedburgh teams and the "private army" Special Air Service (SAS)—briefly involved at different points on the Das Reich march. What the book lacks in unity, indeed, it makes up in diversity and penetration. The ideal reader, though, would be familiar with the setting or the special branches.
Pub Date: May 1, 1982
ISBN: 003057059X
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1982
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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