A dark, gripping historical thriller.
A Jewish family’s courageous defiance of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris sets the stage for a tale of intrigue and danger in Grubman’s debut novel.
In 1942, Mori Rothstein is a successful French art dealer whose clients include some of the wealthiest families in the City of Light. His expertise in the works of the masters has gained him a loyal following and has given him the means to provide for his family. Things change suddenly, however, when Hermann Goering—the head of the Nazi Gestapo and one of the most feared men alive—seeks out Mori’s knowledge. Adolf Hitler is eager to open a museum in Austria that will feature the most renowned works of classical art, and Goering makes it clear that Mori has no choice but to cooperate with him on the project. Mori must help to identify the most prized paintings for Hitler’s museum or be deported. This is easier said than done, however, as German soldiers have already amassed a vast quantity of stolen art, and more arrives every day. After Mori begins to recognize artworks that he sold to others long ago, he devises a daring plan with the help of his son, Émile, to smuggle the precious paintings out of the Nazis’ clutches. But after a high-ranking German officer is killed, the Rothsteins find themselves on the run. The descriptions of life in Paris under Nazi rule are evocative and frightening: “As they headed toward the Tuileries, Émile wondered why that soldier kept following the two of them.” Grubman’s portrayals of his characters are complex and realistic; Mori’s wife, Ruth, for example, ends up playing a critical and satisfying role in the family’s fate. The dialogue feels intimate and conversational, as if one is privy to secret conversations. In one particularly suspenseful scene, Mori attempts to fool Goering with a forgery of a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. As the Nazi takes his time inspecting the sketch, readers will hold their breath: “Mori felt his throat constrict. He’s taking too long, he thought.”
A dark, gripping historical thriller.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73261-000-2
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Dupapier Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Ninth installment in the Dirk Pitt ocean-bottom salvage saga (Raise the Titanic, Cyclops, Treasure), with a dramatic upgrading in the writing. This time out, Cussler keeps a tight plot under a favoring wind and does not fill out his 416 pages with a surplus of subplots—though, to be sure, the story builds on Saturday-matinee cliffhangers and has the usual aircraft blueprints, as well as the Cussler clangor of underwater hardware, for bolting down fantasy. (A character barely picks up a telephone without our getting its specs, including holographics—we're into 1993—and distant speakers facing each other in 3-D.) The story: In 1945, a third plane carrying an atomic bomb to Japan is shot down and sinks off a Japanese island. The waterproof bomb lies down there for 50 years. In 1993, Dirk Pitt mines the sea-bottom with a colossal submersible tractor near the lost plane when a huge Japanese automobile-carrying cargo ship miles above him blows up, destroying two other ships nearby. It seems that a secret Japanese crime cartel, set on raising Japan to world trade dominance starting with a takeover of the US, has been making A-bombs. Lacking missiles, the cartel smuggles its small A-bombs in Japanese automobiles into various US cities and is now ready to blackmail the President for their big takeover. The cartel works out of Dragon Center, the island near where the US A-bomb sank. Dirk Pitt, now drawn into a US secret agency for locating the Japanese bombs (the cartel explodes one bomb in Wyoming for demonstration purposes), is given a new submersible tractor, since his last was destroyed in the accidental A-bomb explosion of the automobile cargo ship, and is sent down to blow up the US bomb in the sunken bomber, thus causing an earthquake and tsunami that will wipe out Dragon Center. Naturally, blowing up an A-bomb poses some threat to Dirk's life—but he does it, and his submersible sinks under a tremendous mudslide into a huge trench. Next we are reading deathproof Dirk's obit. Can he really be. . .? More surpassingly improbable than Indiana Jones, but much fun, crisply told, with exciting special effects. By now, Cussler has spent nearly 5,000 pages mucking around in oceanic blackness. Obsessive?
Pub Date: June 4, 1990
ISBN: 1416537805
Page Count: 609
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1990
A warmblooded, enveloping tale of survival, done up loose and cheering.
A tremendously likable first novel about the catastrophe- marked childhood, youth, and mangled adulthood of a tough-fibered woman who almost beaches herself in guilt and grief.
Terrible things are about to happen to Dolores Price, only child of brittle, vulnerable Bernice and weak, randomly abusive Tony. Tony leaves Bernice sometime after the stillbirth of their son, and after a week playing with little Dolores in a new backyard pool, when the child expects a lifetime of floating with Daddy. Then Bernice completely flips out and goes to a mental hospital; Dolores is taken to live with Grandma in Rhode Island on Pierce Street (which ``smelled of car exhaust and frying food. Glass shattered, people screamed, kids threw rocks''). Later, Ma returns and works collecting tolls on the Newport Bridge, while friendless Dolores attends a corrosive parochial school. But all welcome Grandma's new tenant, dazzling Jack, a radio DJ who, when Dolores is 13, rapes her in a dog pound. The person Dolores runs to is heart-of-gold Roberta, empress of the Peacock Tattoo Emporium across the street. In spite of the strangled but loyal love of Ma and Grandma, the palship of Roberta, and the kindness of a gentle gay guidance-counsellor, Dolores is about to go under. She becomes a mountain of fat, and soon is convinced that she's responsible for the death of Jack's baby—but also of Bernice, who's killed by a car. At a Pennsylvania college, Dolores knows that her destiny is to ``kill what people love.'' There's some good psychiatry and a bad marriage before the peaceful and upbeat close. Lamb has a broad satiric touch with some satisfying fat targets (the warfare of Pierce Street, etc.). And in spite of hard, hard times and crazy coincidences, Dolores' career is a pleasure to follow, as she barrels through—with a killer mouth and the guts of a sea lion.
A warmblooded, enveloping tale of survival, done up loose and cheering.Pub Date: July 15, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-75920-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992
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