A moving novel, albeit more theatrical than thrilling.
A band of Jewish vigilantes formed out of the crucible of World War II attempt to stop a neo-Nazi group from rising to political power in America.
In 1944, Ben Zvi Kantorwicz, barely a teenager, escapes Auschwitz, though his sisters and parents never make it out alive. Longing for vengeance, he becomes one of the founding members of Aleph Bet, an “organization born out of the ashes of Auschwitz and committed to the discovery and punishment of all surviving Nazis.” Over the years, the group grows from a ragtag band of soldiers in the woods of Krakow into an “international brotherhood of Jews.” One of their principal missions is to find and capture Helmut Mussman, the commandant of Auschwitz and its “stoker of the ovens” when Ben Zvi was imprisoned there. Now, in 1964, he’s the leader of Thor, a neo-Nazi group with plans to take over the state of Colorado. Shabel’s portrayal of him is as melodramatic as it is formulaic, reducing him to a cartoonish villain. “His dedication has no bounds. He wriggles, cajoles, and kills with reckless abandon. He wears blinders; his only direction is toward one end. Domination.” Meanwhile, Ben Zvi stands trial for the murder of Albert Horst, a rabid antisemite who beat an elderly Jewish man to death in front of his 7-year-old granddaughter, and then attempted to rape her. Indeed, Ben Zvi did kill Horst, but defends himself on the grounds that it was morally justified, especially during a precarious time for Jews everywhere, a movingly depicted position that’s the best part of the story. The pacing is breakneck, and the pages abound with eventful action and intrigue. However, it’s far too generously packed; there are too many subplots, including two different murder trials, pushing a complex tale into incoherence. The novel’s principal vice is its histrionic tone—the book reads like a combination of soap opera and action-adventure movie—but readers may appreciate the high-stakes storytelling.
A moving novel, albeit more theatrical than thrilling.Pub Date: April 17, 2023
ISBN: 9798391665519
Page Count: 357
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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