The second installment’s streamlined plot results in a crisper, more engaging thriller.
Wright’s (Beyond Ultra, 2011) historical novel continues the saga of the Hoffman and Ortega families as various countries try to track down a German submarine and a man searches for his missing brother.
In 1946, former OSS agent Paul Hoffman still wonders about his brother, Hans, a German U-boat officer who disappeared near the end of World War II along with their uncle, Walter, of the German navy. The Nazis would like to know the whereabouts of the men as well, since their Operation Valhalla failed largely because key information about atomic and biological weapons disappeared—information that was under Walter’s supervision. Former members of the now-dissolved Gestapo decide to keep tabs on the family, including Paul’s brother-in-law, Harvard Law School student Jack Kurtz; and Paul’s cousin, Spanish naval officer Alberto Ortega. Meanwhile, the CIA enlists Paul and Jack to verify or refute the existence of a German nuclear reactor, which leads them to intel on Operation Valhalla, and Spanish Capt. Luis Carrero orders Alberto to track down Paul’s father, Karl, who might lead him to the much-desired Nazi information. Wright’s novel, which spans the years 1946 to 1979, is just as epic in scope as his previous book but decidedly more focused. The first installment, which covered 1915 to 1945, spent the bulk of its story establishing the two families’ histories before delving into the repercussions of war, but this latest is an ideal merging of drama, espionage and historical fiction. Paul’s driving force—finding his brother—is established on the first page and never wavers. The historical backdrop is remarkably detailed, as the characters live through different presidential administrations, the Kennedy assassination, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Also, this time around, the family drama takes place in the midst of a complex story; Paul, for instance, must deal with the realization that double agents are on American soil as he confronts his slowly developing affection for the widowed Anita, who happens to be his cousin. Wright also offers invigorating action scenes, such as when Paul and Jack narrowly escape from secret police in Prague.
The second installment’s streamlined plot results in a crisper, more engaging thriller.Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494772444
Page Count: 450
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
© 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.
