A fast-moving plot and vivid characters make this a most satisfying read.
A Waffen SS colonel plans to profit from World War II while his adjutant hopes to survive it in this tale of good and evil, sex and love.
Young Cpl. Shtefan Brandt looks fit and Aryan, so Col. Himmel chooses him as his adjutant. Himmel is a dashing hero who leads his men on daring raids against the Allies without “a bone of fear in his body.” Brandt is Catholic, but he’s terrified that Himmel will find out that he's mischling—he had a Jewish great-grandmother. Fortunately, "for an assassin, a brigand, a tyrant and a thief, my master did have his good points,” such as never checking Brandt’s background. The thoroughly apolitical Himmel knows Germany is losing the war, and he schemes to steal the Allied payroll from a train. Characters are well-portrayed—Shtefan is upright, principled, even virginal until Himmel orders him to bed a woman. He fears disappointing his master, who can put a bullet in his head at any time. In occupied France, they see the beautiful 18-year-old Gabrielle Belmont, whose parents have been executed. The hateful Himmel takes her as his unwilling mistress—if she refuses, he’ll make certain her townsfolk die—but both men are smitten with her. In time she secretly loves Shtefan, but both live “only at the Colonel’s whim,” so if they even hint at their feelings they will both die. Himmel reveals his robbery plan to Shtefan, which includes them and Gabrielle absconding to South America with the loot. But Shtefan hopes to steal both Gabrielle and some of the money from Himmel. Disgusting as the colonel is, he’s an insightful man. Knowing from an intercepted letter that Shtefan’s mother has just been sent to Dachau, he tells his adjutant that “In the end, your kind will find my kind.”
A fast-moving plot and vivid characters make this a most satisfying read.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-14457-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
He’s Ivo Maltravers, the proud English Duke of Wareham, currency poor but heritage wealthy; and she’s Cora Cash, if not...
A shrewd, spirited historical romance with flavors of Edith Wharton, Daphne du Maurier, Jane Austen, Upstairs, Downstairs and a dash of People magazine that charts a bumpy marriage of New World money and Old World tradition.
He’s Ivo Maltravers, the proud English Duke of Wareham, currency poor but heritage wealthy; and she’s Cora Cash, if not prejudiced then certainly a forthright modern girl who may be the richest American heiress of the late-Victorian era. Their engagement swiftly follows a hunting accident in England, and details of the marriage, such as her gold-and-diamond-trimmed corset and 90-couture-gown trousseau, fill the gossip magazines of the day. But once installed at Lulworth, Ivo’s vast country estate, Cora—like the heroine of Rebecca at Manderley—begins to feel a little out of her depth. The English are slippery, not least Ivo’s mother, the Double Duchess, and Ivo himself seems to be involved with the beautiful blond wife of another nobleman. British TV producer Goodwin’s debut, a knowing, judicious blend of Gilded Age extravagance, below-stairs perspective, delivered via Cora’s black maid, and sophisticated social tableaux, offers reader satisfaction. The marriage suffers its threats, and misunderstandings but a finale overlooking the crashing waves of a Dorset beach resolves matters with characteristic passion and maturity.Pub Date: June 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-65865-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An unusual and stylish story of love and murder—less a mystery than a study of emotions and cultural mores.
In Japan, a daughter explores the crime of passion that took her mother’s life.
Sumiko was just 7 when her mother died and her father moved away; she was raised by her grandfather, who has always maintained that her mother was killed in a car accident. Twenty years later, she answers a phone call meant for him from a prison administrator with information about inmate Kaitarō Nakamura; when the caller realizes whom she is speaking with, she hangs up. With just this detail, Sumiko begins an obsessive quest. She turns up an article headlined “WAKARESASEYA AGENT GOES TOO FAR?” from which she learns that Kaitarō Nakamura was an agent in the “marriage breakup” industry. He was hired by her father to seduce her mother in order to provide grounds for divorce. Nakamura claims that he and her mother had fallen in love and were about to start a new life together. When Sumiko visits Nakamura's defense attorney, the woman hands over all her files and videotaped interviews with her client. Weaving through the story of Sumiko’s search and her recollections of her childhood is the story of her mother and her lover, from the moment he pretended to meet her accidentally at the market and moving inexorably to the murder scene. Scott is a Singaporean British writer born and raised in Southeast Asia; her debut is inspired by a 2010 case in Tokyo and based on years of research. The book proceeds slowly, lingering on enjoyable details of Japanese landscape and food but perhaps not adding enough new information to maintain the level of interest set by the sensational details in the first pages.
An unusual and stylish story of love and murder—less a mystery than a study of emotions and cultural mores.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-385-54470-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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