A riveting fictionalization of an all-too-neglected, pivotal moment in Algiers in 1941.
A historical novel describes the chaos that ensued after Germany invaded France during World War II.
The French government is divided over the proper response to German belligerence. Some favor an orderly capitulation that guarantees peace at the expense of self-determination in order to save countless lives, pledging their allegiance to the new government formed in Vichy under the leadership of Marshal Pétain. Others want to preserve a free France and fight on, inspired by Charles de Gaulle, the undersecretary of defense. De Gaulle hopes that a new government can be installed in French territory in North Africa and that a military regrouping can be staged. While doing his best to keep up the appearance of neutrality, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dispatches Robert Murphy, a diplomat, to Algiers to either help prepare the French to reenter the fray or to at least repel a possible German invasion. Murphy is accompanied by Jacques Dubois, a handsome banker who buys war equipment for the French and the British, both in dire need of as many fighter planes as possible. Algiers is a remarkably complex place, under the constant vigilance of competing spies, and the Allied Powers are anxious to secure it, but also afraid to spook Germany into a preemptive strike. Myers (Betrayal in Europe, 2015, etc.) adroitly limns not only the perilousness of Algiers in 1941, but also the war as a whole: “Contradictory information flooded Algiers. What was clear was that the Germans seemed to be winning—everywhere. Increasingly, the people in Algiers felt isolated as German power spread across the Mediterranean like one of the black stains spreading across the map that you saw in the Allied newsreels.” The author’s command of the historical period is simply magisterial—the serpentine politics of a cleaved France is masterfully and vividly depicted. Myers also furnishes a stirring account of a perilous romance between Joan Tuyl, a married mother clandestinely working for the British cause, and John Knox, an American merchandise officer attached to the consulate in Algiers.
A riveting fictionalization of an all-too-neglected, pivotal moment in Algiers in 1941.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-981852-74-1
Page Count: 338
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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