The methods of a Mafia boss characterized the career of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who in the 15th century briefly ruled England as Richard III. Here, Weir (The Six Wives of Henry VIII, 1992) throws new light on this horror story—and especially on the mysterious disappearance of the two boys who stood in Richard's way. In the 15th century, the succession to the English throne was never stable. A crisis occurred when the saintly Henry VI had a nervous breakdown and was ousted in 1465 by Edward IV. Henry was confined in the Tower of London, part of which was a royal palace, and eventually he was murdered there on Edward's orders, probably by Edward's youngest brother, Richard of Gloucester. When, in 1483, Edward died prematurely, Richard seized power as Lord Protector of the Realm, since the heir apparent, Edward V, was only 13 years old. Within weeks, Richard coerced Parliament into declaring him king on the supposed grounds that the late king's marriage had been invalid. Edward V and his brother, the ten-year old Richard, Duke of York, were removed to the Tower of London, never to be seen again, and most people assumed that Richard had ordered the princes murdered. Richard's former allies began to plot against him—but the monarch died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth. Here, Weir relates these many intrigues and political executions in a highly readable, brisk manner that's at once vivid and scholarly. She makes special use of older accounts written by Dominic Mancini, the Croyland Chroniclers, and St. Thomas More, and she emphasizes the role of Edward IV's queen and her ambitious family. Above all, Weir argues her way convincingly through recent scholarship and the ongoing debate as to the princes' fate and Richard's role in it. (A genealogical table is provided.) A fascinating historical whodunit in which truth is more sordid than fiction. (Eight pages of b&w photographs)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-345-38372-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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