Last year I read and enjoyed Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity for Cannonball Read 6 and the Go Fug Yourself Book club on Goodreads. There was much about Wein’s work with that novel that worked very well and the level of craftsmanship in the character and world building as well as the intricacies of the plot put Rose Under Fire, her second book set in the same world, immediately on my to read list for this year. I wish I could say that Rose lived […]
Sex, Murder and Political Intrigue in war-time Paris
This is the latest in the series by Paul Grossman about the famous and highly respected German homicide detective Willi Kraus. Over the course of Grossman’s several earlier books which I’ve reviewed, the thuggish fringe National Socialist movement grows into the terrifying Nazi juggernaut which destroys the Germany Kraus has known and loved, and soon drives German Jews—himself and his family included—into exile. As one of the last to flee before all escape hatches were slammed shut, the widowed Kraus arrives in Paris without belongings, […]
Stranded in Paradise (with gangrene.)
It’s 1945. The War is winding down, but there are still bases, well, everywhere, including in New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean. Because New Guinea is not the most exciting place to be, they host occasional morale-boosting airplane tours to “Shangri-la”–an untouched, pristine, and gorgeous valley in the middle of rugged, inhospitable mountains (on a rugged, inhospitable island), just recently discovered. In May, a plane carrying 24 soldiers and members of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), crashed en route to Shangri-la. Only three survived. They have to […]
More World War II
This is a dense book, but it’s easy to read. It’s an almost 400-page look at the four years when the Nazis occupied Paris. As someone raised in the U.S., I’ve heard jokes about how quickly the French surrendered during World War II, and how the U.S. liberated them. But that seemed a bit simplistic, so when I saw this in a book store I knew I wanted to read it. Mr. Rosbottom has done a ton of research and created a really interesting story. […]
Way More Bad Ass Than Rosie the Riveter
Don’t let the title fool you, it’s about the only titillating thing you’ll read in this book. I know that sounds like a slam on the book, but with a title like that, I was expecting the text to be a bit more reader accessible. I really can’t recommend this one unless you already have a good foundation of WWII history, especially the British intelligence front during the war. Between myriad acronyms and an intense expectation of European geography, it is not a book to […]
Berlin Before the War
Three Stars Who doesn’t want to start the year with a book about pre-WW II Nazi Germany? I mean, what better way to ease into an attempted double cannonball? Despite the subject matter, this book is not a challenging read. I read Mr. Larson’s book about the Chicago World’s Fair (Devil in the White City) either last year or the year before and found it to be good but tough to get through. This book flowed better, although it didn’t really end. I mean, obviously, it […]
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