ALEX, WHO WON HIS WAR

Alex Kellar, 14, longs for WW II to be over and his soldier brother, Oliver, to come home. When he and a friend find a body on the coast of their New London, Connecticut, town, the dead man's wallet leads Alex into a confrontation with two Nazi saboteurs whose mission is to blow up Electric Boat, a manufacturer of submarines and one of the town's major employers. Nostalgic details of the home front make for a slow start, but the narrative builds to a swift pace as Alex finds himself enmeshed in new promises to elderly neighbors (who are in the hands of the Nazis) and in old vows to his brother (if he breaks them, will he ``jinx'' Oliver's chances for survival?). The evil Nazi and his slightly softer (though still duty-bound) comrade give Aaron ample opportunity for pointing out the impossibly gray areas of war and soldiering; his story is based on large-scale true events, grounded in solid motives and characterizations, and loaded with suspense. (Fiction. 10+)