Good, unfamiliar World War II history.
When Germans were imprisoned in America.
Nearly 400,000 German POWs spent WWII in America. Journalist Geroux delivers an expert, unsettling story of this little-known aspect of the war. Author of The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-boats, Geroux adds that the POWs were better fed and housed than their families in Germany; many yearned to remain in the U.S. after the war. Senior German officers set the tone in every camp. A minority were fanatic Nazis, certain that Germany would win the war, despising flabby, undisciplined Americans, and determined to enforce fierce loyalty to the Fuhrer. Most POWs went along, but there were always a few who expressed unflattering opinions on Hitler or made themselves obnoxious to their companions. Warnings or beatings were the usual response, but Geroux recounts several cases where guards found prisoners beaten to death or strangled in clumsy attempts to fake their suicides. Suspects underwent investigations and trials, and 15 of those convicted received the death penalty. Following the Geneva Convention, the Germans were informed of it. Geroux then describes conditions of over 70,000 American POWs in Axis camps, focusing on a group tried for trivial offenses such as disobeying guards and sentenced to death in an effort to force a prisoner exchange. Using Swiss diplomats as intermediaries, the Roosevelt administration began negotiations, but these extended into 1945, when the Nazi regime was crumbling and messages were delayed and sometimes lost. In the end, no American was executed; in July 1945, two months after Germany’s surrender, the U.S. hanged 14 of the condemned Germans. There is no lesson, but readers will have no doubt that America, despite its warts—many German defendants were badly roughed up, but on the other hand, the POWs were often treated better than Black American soldiers—deserved to win.
Good, unfamiliar World War II history.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593594254
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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