STOLEN MARCHES

A quirky, award-winning English thriller about love and war, making both seem accidental. From the author of Horseman Pass By (published in the UK).

In the closing months of WWII, Stephen Seagrave, a young Englishman, is in France working with the Resistance. There are no strong convictions involved, no grand illusions, no abstractions to be served—even the negative feelings Stephen harbors for the Nazis are held well in check. He is simply where circumstances have placed him, and he does what events drive him to do. Having friends among the Freedom Fighters, he performs bravely on their behalf. Pretending to be a charwoman—with a tiny camera concealed under his skirts—he risks his life daily, taking pictures that prove of significant value to the cause he has only a mild interest in. Of greater interest is rescuing Ida Karoly, the beautiful gypsy prostitute he befriended one night, and on whom, it turns out, he has fathered a child. Does he love her? Perhaps. On the other hand, it’s not really the kind of question Stephen is equipped to answer. At any rate, Ida has disappeared into a concentration camp. When the German retreat becomes irreversible, the Resistance splinters—predictably enough—as soldier-politicians begin their inevitable jockeying for postwar position. One of these, Stephen decides, is ripe for blackmailing and conscripting into the Ida-hunt. Meantime, however, a childhood flame of Stephen’s decides she’s been patient long enough and mounts a Stephen-hunt. Which girl? A quandary. Still, it’s the author’s apparent thesis that the act of choosing is of limited significance, since whatever Stephen does, the result is “a toss-up, much like anything else.”

Understated and witty, but Stephen, almost devoid of an interior life, may be a bit more detached than most readers care for in their heroes.