A clever, finely detailed historical mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the end.
Seifer’s saga shifts between Nazi Germany and the country’s problematic present-day repercussions as a man tries to piece together his past.
Rudy Styne, a reporter for Modern Times Magazine, has always been intrigued by his past, especially because he has a relative who could be his twin. But Rudy’s doppelgänger, Rolf Linzman, is 15 years older than him. This fact takes us to the story of the Maxwells, beginning in the run-up to World War II; there’s Elias—a Jew trying to pass as Christian—his son, Abe, and their servant family, the Linzmans, Gunter and his grandson, Gunter III, aka Guntie. Elias enjoys a successful career designing and building airplanes, but because everyone knows the Maxwells are Jews, they could lose everything. Eventually (and with crushing irony) the Nazi leadership puts the Linzmans in charge of the company, and the Maxwells must flee for their lives. Casting an ominous shadow over these proceedings is the notorious figure of Hermann Göring, Hitler’s right-hand man, head of the Luftwaffe, and a flamboyant, larger-than-life character whose dress uniform had “so many colorful badges that it looked like a concession stand.” Another standout character, besides Abe himself, is his daughter, Rose, a piano prodigy who, at age 6, manages to offend the narcissistic Hitler at a concert. And then, in a loosely connected present-day subplot, there are evil genius computer hackers with names like NTroodr, T-Dan Mulrooney, and Code Breaker Morant. Sorting out the almost doppelgänger likeness between Rudy and Rolf eventually asserts itself as a major plot thread, and it is indeed a clever device. And the book also serves as a detailed historical summary of Hitler’s strategies during World War II. In an endnote, Seifer separates his fictional characters—Rudy, the Maxwells, the Linzmans, for instance—from the many well-known historical ones he includes. In the narrative itself, however, the author blends fact and fiction almost seamlessly. The subplot with the competing hackers is a tad overwhelming, and many readers will find it hard to understand their machinations. But Seifer is clearly having fun juggling so many characters, time periods, and themes, and his creative energy is infectious.
A clever, finely detailed historical mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the end.Pub Date: April 11, 2019
ISBN: 9781093545777
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
