A thoroughly researched submarine novel that sails along smoothly despite underdeveloped characters.
In Thesing’s debut historical thriller, a British lieutenant finds himself submerged in a World War I naval battle.
In the summer of 1914, Lt. Henry Fischer enjoys a cushy position in Great Britain’s Royal Navy as a navigation officer aboard a destroyer, sitting comfortably in the sunny Mediterranean. But when word comes down of a promotion, Henry leaps at the chance to become a special aide to Vice Adm. Sir George Warrender, commander of the Royal Navy’s 2nd Battle Squadron. Henry’s first assignment at his new post is nothing short of a dream: a special invite to the annual Kiel Week Regatta, where naval officers clink glasses and swap stories with European royalty. There, he’ll get to meet Germany’s infamous Kaiser Wilhelm II and even race aboard his private yacht. On the other side is Johannes Speiss, a young sailor in the German naval fleet. The two young men meet at the regatta but don’t have time to learn much about each other before the mood changes radically. Kaiser Wilhelm is informed that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Archduchess Sophie, have been assassinated by Serbian terrorists in Sarajevo. From that point on, it’s simply a matter of time until both Britain and Germany—and Fischer and Speiss—are in the thick of what will become the first world war. Later, Speiss gets an assignment as an officer aboard one of the infamous German “undersea boats”: U-9. As with any war-themed story, there’s battle, glory, death, victory and defeat in spades. Much of the novel’s appeal is in its documentation of the great naval battles of WWI, particularly the day in September 1914 when a lone German U-boat felled three British cruisers. History buffs, particularly those with a passion for the sea, will enjoy this in-depth look at the early days of submarine warfare. Beyond that, the prose is steady enough but doesn’t distinguish itself from the many other novels that crowd this historical fiction genre. Readers looking for an exciting yarn may not find unique, realistic characters, but they will appreciate the novel’s fast pace.
A thoroughly researched submarine novel that sails along smoothly despite underdeveloped characters.Pub Date: July 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-1304278821
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Merriam Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 Yorker staff 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
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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