This is the tale of a irrepressible friendship between two women doing very unusual jobs. It is World War II and England is barely holding its own as the Germans begin bombing runs over Britain. Maddie, one of the two women, is a mechanical wizard who earns herself a place in the skies as a highly skilled pilot. Queenie, the other, is a spy. Consider how many female spies and pilots you can picture from that era and you have the underpinnings for a lot of suspense with a new twist. I can’t give away more of the plot without being a spoiler. Ignore the book’s cover and be aware the book is written for Young Adults, but enjoy it.
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Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon ** (of 4)
Very rarely is an author’s style so obstructionist that it interferes, but sadly, Kanon’s frequent indecipherability kept me from finishing. Too bad. I was in the mood for this kind of book. World War II has just ended and the Cold War is heating up. Former war spies are being called upon to acquire former Nazis for our side before the communists can claim them. Istanbul is packed with undercover and double agents and is the perfect location for secret nighttime transfers of intelligence. Not deep stuff, but surely the basis for fun. At first, I gave Kanon the benefit of the doubt when he started the story midstream. Then I figured he was being obscure because that must be how espionage feels. But after one hundred pages of not being able to track his plot nor be certain who was speaking I gave up in frustration.
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Mission to Paris by Alan Furst *** (of 4)
Fredric Stahl, a handsome American movie star of Austrian descent is sent by his California studio to Paris to make a movie. The year is 1939, the eve of Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and ultimately France. Recognizing the opportunity to advance their political agenda, German spies target Stahl and ensnare him into promoting Nazi propaganda. The American ambassador in Paris works Stahl as a double agent. Much of the action takes place in a Paris deep with apprehension and the book provides a fascinating account of the dichotomous French views at the time: stand up to the Nazis, now and forever vs. a post World War I sentiment to avoid bloodshed and an almost certain whipping before German might. Bistro dinners, cocktail parties, smoky basement bars, even the damp winter chill of Paris in December are all on full display. Unfortunately, the book feels like a black and white movie of the era that we have seen before. The suspense and intrigue that should accompany this kind of book all feel two-dimensional rather than insightful or revelatory. -
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson *** (of 4)
William E. Dodd, an unassuming, dysthymic, history professor at the University of Chicago finds himself America’s ambassador to Berlin in 1933. President Roosevelt is battling the country’s worst Depression with little time to focus attention on European woes so Dodd arrives in Berlin largely unprepared for the job with his wife, son, and man-hungry, 20-something year-old daughter, Martha. The family is ridiculed as incompetent outsiders by the old-boy’s network in the U.S. State Department and largely brushed off by German officials. Martha has relations with Nazis and Russian communists without her father’s awareness. The increasingly marginalized William Dodd has the last word on his detractors, however. First hand witness to Hitler’s ruthless rise to power he declares loudly and clearly that the Nazis are a terror to be reckoned with sooner rather than later. No one listened. -
When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka *** (of 4)
A short introduction to the dehumanizing, racist relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps at the outset of World War II. We follow a single, nameless family from a small bungalow in Berkeley, after the father is hauled off for questioning by the FBI. It is the day after Pearl Harbor. Weeks later Mom and the two children are moved to a church, the Tanforan horse racing track, and finally a desert internment camp in Nevada. Dislocation, despair, depression, disbelief, and quiet obedience pervade these Japanese stripped of their rights and dignity. Dad is returned to his family four years later a broken man. No explanation or reparations are offered by the U.S. government. When the Emperor was Divine reads more like a young adult book than a great novel, but for those who don’t know much about the Japanese internment camps, this is a good place to begin. -
City of Thieves by David Benioff **** (of 4)
Lev Benioff, a 15-year-old Russian, Jewish kid and Kolya, a deserter from the Russian Army with an overactive libido and terrible constipation, find themselves trapped behind enemy lines during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. The two must find a dozen eggs for the commander of the Russian secret service within a week or face execution. The two will die if they don’t find the eggs for the NKVD or they will die if the Nazi SS captures them. Kolya is worried about getting laid, taking a crap, and writing the next great Russian novel as they trudge through the snow searching for chickens. Lev would be happy to just be kissed by a girl. The SS is all around them. The story starts slowly. It all feels too self-consciously assembled like a novel. By the time I was three-fourths through the book, however, I was flipping pages as fast as I could. -
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell ** (of 4)
It chronicles the Italian resistance to the Germans during the last two years of WWII. A very positive review in Publisher’s Weekly, and it was read as “One book, One City” in Erie, but I didn’t finish it. Russell’s research is outstanding, I could feel it on every page, but the plot was well, plodding, and I didn’t learn much after I realized that Italians were not really Nazi supporters in WWII. After that the Jews suffer, Germans are evil, countryside Italians are friendly peasants, and keeping track of all the characters in Russell’s multi-threaded narrative is just a bit too much work. October 2007.
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No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin *** (of 4)
The book only covers five years, but it does it so thoroughly that it probably contains more than half a million words. Goodwin brings several strengths to the task. First, she doesn’t try to cover their entire lives. Second, and most appealing to me, she describes events chronologically, as if we were following them unfold in the newspapers. Third, she integrates the combustible nuances of Franklin’s and Eleanor’s divergent personalities, providing psychoanalysis at the same time she is explaining their actions as perceived by the nation and world. Fourth, she writes about World War II as perceived from within America, a view I’ve never encountered before. Fifth, she’s a very compelling writer. But the book’s length makes it a real commitment. September 2006.
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Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester *** (of 4)
One of Manchester’s best. A memoir about his role in WWII marines in Pacific theater.
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Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose ** (of 4)
A story of Easy Company during WW II that trained as the most elite paratrooper unit in the Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge holding off the Germans despite alarming odds and the absence of supplies. The kind of men that make up the greatest generation. Ambrose does let on that these guys were young, uneducated men capable of less than honorable behavior – cowardice, looting, poor judgment – but that is a minor theme. There are too many names to keep track of in the book. The fight scenes are very well described. December 2004
