A captivating, action-packed thriller that’s historically astute.
In this World War II novel, an American captain of a cargo ship gets paid to smuggle a Jewish family to safety and ends up doggedly pursued by Nazis.
Jake Rogers is the captain of an aging tramp steamer, a cargo ship he uses to transport often questionable merchandise for equally suspect clients. He candidly declares his amorality: “I get paid for what I do. Duty and honor have nothing to do with it.” While in Amsterdam, he’s given his most peculiar shipment yet, a Jewish family of six: Uncle Levy, a rabbi; his three young children; and two sisters, Miriam and Truus, his nieces. Rogers is paid by Miriam’s father, Mr. Maduro, to convey the family to Gibraltar, a dangerous mission given that the “heartless sea” is swarmed by “trigger-happy U-boat captains,” a perilous situation thrillingly portrayed by Miller. The task is further complicated when Rogers’ boat, the Peggy C, is boarded by three German soldiers in search of contraband—he has no choice but to overtake them and keep them prisoner. In addition, the Peggy Cis tirelessly pursued by an ambitious U-boat commander, Oberleutnant zur See Viktor Brauer, a zealous Nazi angling to climb the ranks. Much of the plot is cinematically formulaic—Rogers is a troubled loner with a dark past who gradually comes to experience a moral transformation, partly because of his growing affection for Miriam. She requites his love, blandly communicating her feelings: “You are a very strange, very wonderful man, Captain Jake Rogers. I have never met anyone like you. You are not afraid.” But the action—and there is no shortage of it—is electrifying. Further, the author’s knowledge of the relevant historical material—in particular, the naval aspects—is extraordinary. While Miller’s novel has its shortcomings, it is still an intelligent and exciting read.
A captivating, action-packed thriller that’s historically astute.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1610885706
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Bancroft Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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