Rain Falls like Mercy by Jack Todd

A gripping and graphic story of murder!

Description

Set against the sweeping backdrop of World War II, Rain Falls Like Mercy is a gripping depiction of a family and a country touched by the grand violence of war, the senseless violence of crime, and the intimate violence of the heart.

IN THE TRADITION OF TRUE CRIME narratives such as In Cold Blood, acclaimed author Jack Todd’s new novel grips the reader from the first page; and as it spans continents and generations of one family, its taut and shocking undercurrent of violence builds to a stunning crescendo. Todd’s first novel, Sun Going Down, which introduced the Paint family, won praise from reviewers and major authors such as Michael Korda and Michael Blake. His second novel, Come Again No More, recounted the Paints’ saga of triumph and tragedy through the Great Depression, inspiring the Ottawa Citizen to label Todd “a first-rate novelist with a tender heart.”

Rain Falls Like Mercy opens with the murder investigation of a young girl in Wyoming in mid- 1941. Tom Call, the young sheriff running the investigation, falls in love with Juanita, the wife of Eli Paint, whose son Leo and grandson Bobby Watson are on duty with the U.S. Navy. Almost overnight, the case is derailed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, disrupting the lives of all involved. Bobby mans an antiaircraft gun during the attack. Tom joins the U.S. Air Force and is deployed to England to fly bombers, still trying to pursue his murder investigation. His suspicion falls on Pardo Bury, the psychotic son of a wealthy rancher in Wyoming.

As Pardo and Tom make their ways to their inevitable and shattering confrontation, Rain Falls Like Mercy displays Todd’s uncanny ability to zero in on his characters’ emotional lives while simultaneously painting a sweeping picture of the historical events that shape their destinies.

Review

Rain Falls Like Mercy is the third edition in Jack Todd’s trilogy about the Paint family. You do not necessarily need to read the first two in order to enjoy this third book, but I suspect you will wish to do so after you read this one.

This story takes place in 1941 during World War II in a small Wyoming town where the murder investigation of a slain teen girl is underway.

The town sheriff, Tom Call, must forego his investigation when Pearl Harbour is bombed and he soon finds himself in the U.S. Air Force flying dangerous missions in England. Yet he still tries to unravel the circumstances of the murder investigation that awaits him at home and his sole suspect, Pardo Bury, the son of a very affluent and powerful businessman.  

While Tom Call is embroiled in the war in England, Pardo Bury waits out his time a Texas jail for slicing a prostitute. The moment he is released, sets out on a new spree of violence, victimizing both men and women.

Part Western, part World War II, the story unfolds with intensity as Jack Todd holds nothing back in his graphic descriptions, strong language, and twisting plot. The reader embarks on a journey from the U.S. to England, Japan to Germany, and then back to the U.S., keeping us enthralled throughout. 

The Time in Between by Maria Duenas

The inspiring international bestseller of a seemingly ordinary woman who uses her talent and courage to transform herself first into a prestigious couturier and then into an undercover agent for the Allies during World War II .

Between Youth and Adulthood . . .

At age twelve, Sira Quiroga sweeps the atelier floors where her single mother works as a seamstress. At fourteen, she quietly begins her own apprenticeship. By her early twenties she has learned the ropes of the business and is engaged to a modest government clerk. But everything changes when two charismatic men burst unexpectedly into her neatly mapped-out life: an attractive salesman and the father she never knew.

Between War and Peace . . .

With the Spanish Civil War brewing in Madrid, Sira leaves her mother and her fiancé, impetuously following her handsome lover to Morocco. However, she soon finds herself abandoned, penniless, and heartbroken in an exotic land. Among the odd collection of European expatriates trapped there by the worsening political situation back on the Continent, Sira reinvents herself by turning to the one skill that can save her: her gift for creating beautiful clothes.

Between Love and Duty . . .

As England, Germany, and the other great powers launch into the dire conflict of World War II, Sira is persuaded to return to Madrid, where she takes on a new identity to embark upon the most dangerous undertaking of her career. As the preeminent couturier for an eager clientele of Nazi officers’ wives, Sira becomes embroiled in the half-lit world of espionage and political conspiracy rife with love, intrigue, and betrayal.

Already a runaway bestseller across Europe, The Time In Between is one of those rare, richly textured novels that enthrall down to the last page. María Dueñas reminds us how it feels to be swept away by a masterful storyteller.

The Time in Between is a novel that became an international bestseller in Europe through the power of word-of-mouth. This comes as no surprise; the story unfolds with a luscious first person narrative and detail that truly creates some incredibly vivid scenes.

In 1920’s Spain, Sira Quiroga is the daughter of a poor seamstress who must work alongside her mother in order to earn a scant living. Through painstaking tutelage, she hones her skills. Although engaged to marry a well-established, kind-hearted man, she leaves him for an extremely handsome and charismatic man who sweeps her off her feet with his romantic attentions. Against her mother’s better judgement, she moves in with him, without the benefit of marriage.

One day, the father she has never known mysteriously summons her. Due to the turbulent political situation, he is fearful of his life and is prepared to flee from Spain. He hands her an incredible amount of money and jewellery to take care of her future.

Her lover convinces her to move with him to Tangier and Tetouan on a business scheme. There they live the high life until the day Sira learns she is pregnant. When she returns home to tell her lover, she discovers he has abandoned her, taking all the money and jewels, and leaving her without a penny to pay the extensive hotel bill.

Devastated, Sira struggles to pay off her debts and earn a decent living, enough so that she can bring her mother out of the dangerous political situation in Spain. She opens shop as a seamstress and soon attracts a cliental of rich German women. Soon, she is lead into a dangerous role ad risks her life spying against Hitler’s growing regime.

The appeal of this novel is definitely the human portrayal of a brave heroine who must overcome insurmountable circumstances. Add to that the politics of a volatile world on the eve of World War II, and you have a novel with a fascinating plot. Filled with peril, deception, poverty, corruption, and excessive wealth, we feel as if we are actually experiencing the heroine’s pain and troubles with each page turn.

Written with vivid prose that evokes deep emotion in its reader, The Time in Between is a timeless novel of treachery, duplicity, and bravery.

The Blue Suitcase by Marianne Wheelaghan

A poignant story of a German family's struggles during the Nazi reign

Back Cover:

It is 1932, Silesia, Germany, and the eve of Antonia's 12th birthday. Hitler's Brownshirts and Red Front Marxists are fighting each other in the streets. Antonia doesn't care about the political unrest but it's all her family argue about. Then Hitler is made Chancellor and order is restored across the country, but not in Antonia's family. The longer the National Socialists stay in power, the more divided the family becomes with devastating consequences. Unpleasant truths are revealed and terrible lies uncovered. Antonia thinks life can't get much worse - and then it does. Partly based on a true-life story, Antonia's gripping diary takes the reader inside the head of an ordinary teenage girl growing up. Her journey into adulthood, however, is anything but ordinary.

It was with great pleasure that I read this World War II Nazi Germany story told through the eyes of a young German girl. The Blue Suitcase opens in 1932 Silesia, Germany. Antonia Nasiski is twelve years old. The political upheaval in her country slowly infiltrates her family, tearing them apart bit by bit as they each face horrific struggles.

It is a poignant coming-of-age story that tugs at the reader’s heartstrings. The easy, simplistic style transcends age restrictions and is appropriate for young adults as well as adults. What makes this novel so important is that it gives readers a point of view rarely shared – that of the suffering of the common German people.

The novel is a compelling read, unique, and one that will definitely shock. It is a portrayal of the resilience of the human spirit. An excellent depiction of a lesser know point of view.

The Cyclist by Fred Nath

Book Review of The Cyclist by Fred Nath

Reviewed by: L. Gregory Graham

World War II can be a touchy subject. It is still too fresh in our collective memory. In addition, there is film. As a result, it is very hard to romanticize it or to stray far from the truth. This novel of three hundred pages confronts these obstacles and manages to tell a compelling story.

Vichy France is a deal with the devil at best. The Nazi’s, acting the part of the Devil, promise that they will not rape and pillage too much if citizens of France promise not to resist. The deal is frequently violated on both sides. The Nazi’s take what they want, and violate whomever they choose, and the French organize a resistance movement that does what it can to kill soldiers and sympathizers and disrupt Nazi hegemony.

This is the world of August Ran, an assistant Chief of Police, in Bergerac, a small town in the south of France. He is a just man, a moral man who knows on the most basic level that the social fabric must be maintained. The guilty must be punished, and justice must prevail no matter who is in charge. When the order comes down from the Nazi’s that all Jews in the prefecture must be identified, he compiles the list and passes it along. When the order comes down that all Jews must wear a yellow Star of David on their coats, he enforces this also. Only when the orders come that he must round up the Jews for deportation to work camps does he wake up to the moral implications of his actions.

To make matters worse, he is sheltering the daughter of his boyhood Jewish friend who has joined the resistance, and the Nazi in charge of his area has raped and murdered a young woman. It looks as if the monster will get away with it and be free to rape and murder again.

August finds himself plunged into a moral nightmare without easy answers. Should he obey Nazi orders and round up the Jews if he knows that they will be killed? Should he continue to harbor the Jewish girl when it jeopardizes his own family? How can he allow the Nazi commander to get away with rape and murder? Isn’t he in the final analysis a policeman, and isn’t his job to protect the people of Bergerac from monsters like the Nazi even if the courts and the penal system no longer function as they should? Finally if he kills the commander, is his immortal soul forfeit or is he absolved because he is an instrument of God’s will?

Nath does an excellent job of depicting one man’s moral and intellectual struggle to make sense of a world turned upside down. It is far too easy for us, seventy years after the war to label all Nazis as evil and deserving of death. It is another thing to walk in the shoes of a just man faced with the enormity of the Nazi regime. When does one decide that killing is the only answer?

It is not an easy question. If you don’t believe me, change the circumstances. Should an Iraqi man who watched his family killed by an American soldier take that soldier’s life when he gets the chance? Is he morally justified in doing so?

There is a gritty appealing reality to this story. Sometimes one must find a way to work with evil to preserve a greater good, sometimes one must decide when evil has gone too far, and sometimes one must resist it knowing the consequences. They are tough decisions that take a man back to the basics. What does he believe and why does he believe it?

The story is a compelling one. There were times when I wearied of August’s internal monologues, but in the end, it is worth it. August does what he must because of who he is and what he believes. That makes him a hero.

The Losing Role by Steve Anderson

Reviewed by Gregory Graham

This is a novel by an American told from a German actor’s point of view during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. The actor’s military mission is to pose as an American so he can sabotage the Allied effort. Secretly he is trying to find a way out of a brutal war that Germany cannot win. That is a tiny hint of the ironic “Through the Looking Glass” tone that the author maintains throughout the book.

I know a little more than the average person about the Battle of the Bulge. My father was a front line infantryman battling the Germans, the snow, and the cold in Belgium in December of 1944. I knew of the Massacre at Malmedy, and I knew the G.I. response to it. A soldier caught in an SS uniform from that point on died immediately. It never occurred to me what the German soldier’s response to the massacre might be. I see now that they would be equally horrified first because turnabout could be expected, and secondly, the growing realization on both sides that the stupidity of their own officers is what got them killed.

Max, the main character of the novel, is an apolitical failed actor turned reluctant soldier. He has lived in America and has mixed feelings about the broad, muscular, cultureless country. He returns to Germany when he cannot support himself as an actor in New York. While there, he has seen America’s might and its endless resources, and knows that Germany will lose the war. He merely wants to survive. When the chance comes to escape the brutality of the Russian Front for a special mission in the west, he grabs it hoping at some point he will be able to surrender to the Americans or perhaps disappear behind the American lines until the war is over.

The only problem is he is the tip of the spear for Germany’s greatest attack against the west during WWII. They put him in an SS uniform, give him an American uniform on top and send him out ahead of the Panzers to create confusion in the American ranks, and to take a key bridge that the tanks must cross if the attack is to be a success.

Max does not anticipate several problems. American slang is subtle and beyond his skills as an English speaker, his companions are less than helpful, the weather is awful, and the attack is doomed to failure from the start. He manages to handle those problems, but what he does not anticipate is the moral conundrum he finds himself in. Is he a German or an American? What is he willing to do to survive? Once he decides who he is, his path is clear.

There are a bunch of good reasons to read this book. It presents the war as seen from the eyes of a German corporal. It is a nasty, brutal affair that they have been tricked into by Nazis. He is terrified of the Russians, but has a hard time thinking of the Americans as the enemy despite the bullets and the artillery. The book does a marvelous job of showing the ‘fog of war’ wherein no one truly understands what is going on once the attack has begun. Finally, the book is fun. Shakespeare may have said that all the world’s a play, but Max lives it. The difference is that Max’s audience is hostile, and a bad review means death.



Heidegger's Glasses by Thaisa Frank

Review by Sheila R. Lamb

 Heidegger’s Glasses is a complex, intricate story that weaves history with the esoteric. By using philosopher Martin Heidegger’s eyeglasses as a catalyst, Thaisa Frank questions the definition of reality within the historical framework of World War II Germany. 

Cocooned from the blatant horrors of World War II, Scribes and their SS guards are equally imprisoned in an underground compound, built within a mineshaft. The job of the captive Scribes is to answer letters to the dead in order to appease their otherworldly spirits, who would otherwise tell the world about the Nazi plan for the Final Solution. Based on the historical existence of the Thule Society and the Nazi officers who subscribed to occultist beliefs, Frank extends their ideas to create the fictional Compound of Scribes.

Elie Schacten is one of the Scribes, a group of bilingual translators forced to write letters to the dead. Elie and her lover, SS guard Gerhardt Lodenstein, are members of the Resistance, and use the Compound of Scribes as a hiding place for refugees.  Elie’s true identity remains shrouded in layers of mystery, much to Lodenstein’s dismay.

When the feared Nazi propaganda leader Goebbels orders the Scribes to write a letter and deliver eyeglasses to philosopher Martin Heidegger from his optometrist friend Asher Englehardt, held at Auschwitz, the clandestine world of the Scribes is turned upside down. Neither Englehardt nor Heidegger is dead and the Scribes openly question the bizarre nature of their entire mission. Suddenly, their personal dramas meet the harsh face of Auschwitz as Lodenstein ventures beyond the compound to follow the Reich’s orders. Elie and Lodenstein must protect the Scribes, and the Resistance, from Goebbels’s unpredictable wrath.

Thaisa Frank writes with clear-cut prose, deftly juxtaposes the horror of war and the tenderness of love. Heidegger’s Glasses asks, in the face of war and death, what is real?

What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman

What is Left the Daughter
By Howard Norman
Reviewed by L. Gregory Graham

Why do some families appear to attract an unusual share of bad luck and woe while others sail through life piling achievement upon achievement? The author tries to answer that question in the rocky wind swept village of Middle Economy in Nova Scotia during World War II when German Uboats patrol the waters of Eastern Canada sinking what boats they can.

What is Left the Daughter is a story of a boy marked for life by the suicides of his parents on the same day. Both jump to their deaths from separate bridges in Halifax, Canada. The story is the interplay between the heart and the mind when disaster is heaped upon disaster in the course of one young life.

Does one recover from something like that? In this case, the answer is no. His life is colored by the sepia tones of that tragedy. Wyatt Hillyer, the protagonist of the story, moves to the village of Middle Economy to live with his aunt and uncle. It is a village where the women are emotionally stronger and saner than the men. It is also a village where anyone who leaves to improve their lot in life fails. He starts a new life, makes friends, falls in love with Tilda, the adopted daughter of his aunt and uncle, is spurned, and foolishly helps his uncle dispose of the body of his murdered brother-in-law.

When he returns to Middle Economy after prison, he fathers a child named Marlais by Tilda. He loves them dearly, but Tilda and Marlais move to Denmark to live with the parents of her murdered husband.

The book takes the form of a long letter to Marlais who has decided to return to Canada now that her mother has died. Wyatt tries to explain himself, and why he has not tried to visit or even contact her for twenty years.

Self-reflection is not a strong point in Wyatt. He catalogs his long days working as a detritus collector in Halifax Harbor. He accepts his lot in life. He lives in transient hotels, goes to movies, and lives a small careful life devoid of self-improvement or ambition. Wyatt loves his daughter, but never makes any attempt to see her or contact her.

We are left with the question why? Wyatt tells us that he thinks the ghosts of his parents are with him always. They whisper in the static on the radio. Does he fear that his bad decisions will imprint on Marlais if he contacts her the way his parents’ decisions imprinted on him? Or is he merely content with the small rut of a life he has carved for himself in the rocky damp soil of Nova Scotia? Has he judged himself in some cosmic balance, and deemed that this is the only life he deserves? We never know for sure.

This book asks some tough questions, and then supplies only incomplete answers. Is Wyatt a hero in the sense that he refuses to pass on the legacy of his parents and his own bad decisions? Or is he so self absorbed in penance for his own misdeeds that he cannot reach out to his own daughter? And finally, why does he feel it necessary to contact her now that she has decided to return to Canada? Does he wish to tell his side of the story now that Tilda can no longer filter it, or before she hears it from the folks of Middle Economy?

In the end, what is left to Marlais? Her legacy appears to be a very long letter and a very timid father.

The Hitler I Knew by Otto Dietrich

Reviewed by L. Gregory Graham


I would love to make this book required reading for anyone who considers himself an educated person. It is a primer on how a good nation goes bad. Ignorance does not lead Germany into the clutches of Hitler. There is no thirst for world dominance in them. Their populace is as educated as any at the time. They wanted what we all want: a job and a little security in their lives. They surrendered personal freedom to get it, not a big thing for a people used to living under a Kaiser. Unfortunately, the author points out that times had changed. War had become total, communications instantaneous, and the world far too complex for one man to run.

As sometimes happens, the reason the author wrote the book and the reason why it is so important to read are different. Dietrich, a man who was in almost constant contact with Hitler throughout his career as leader of Germany, wrote this book to explain to the German people following WWII why they were not at fault for the rise of Hitler and the destruction that ensued. He spends a great deal of time describing how Hitler burst upon the scene as a man of destiny. How he seduced the people into believing that he was always right, always fair, and always had their best interests at heart. How he ultimately concealed his dark side: his all-consuming hatred for the Jews, his plans for world domination, and his willingness to sacrifice everything to achieve it.

I’m not sure how well he does that, but then my sensibilities are not his, nor is my time his. I do not automatically assume that my government has my best interests at heart. It is an attitude with a long tradition in the United States.

What I find fascinating about this book is how Hitler, a man devoted to improving the welfare of German lives, eventually through the force of his personality destroyed everything that he held dear. He did not plan to reduce Germany to ashes and rubble, he did not plan to destroy an entire generation of young men, nor did he plan to turn his beloved country into a captive nation for the remainder of the twentieth century and yet that is what he did. How does that happen?

“Hitler had extraordinary intellectual gifts—in some fields undoubted genius. He had an eye for essentials, an astounding memory, a remarkable imagination, and a bold decisiveness that made for unusual success in his social undertakings and his other peaceful works,” Otto Deitrich writes in the opening pages of his book. These are qualities that any board of directors would find appealing in their CEO. No wonder the people loved him. He put seven million unemployed back to work. He thumbed his nose at France, England and America who had stupidly demanded reparation payments following WWI, and he reminded his downtrodden citizens that they were a great people, and a great civilization. So far, so good.

Then the German people gave him ultimate power when he asked for it. Why shouldn’t they? He had done so many good things for them. The new powers would only make it easier for him to give them more. No person, no institution could say no to him or even question his decisions, and the good he had done crumbled away as individual prejudice replaced reason, and might replaced morality.

It practically makes me want to give the American system of checks and balances a big wet kiss on the one hand, because I think it would stop a homegrown Hitler from coming to ultimate power. On the other hand, I also worry about the desperation of the unemployed who might be willing to trade freedom for a steady job, quality medical care, and a secure retirement. These are things in short supply in America at the onset of the second decade of the twenty-first century. Perhaps our leaders should take note.

The book documents Hitler’s fall into megalomania. It happens by degrees. The public man gradually surrounds himself with friends and sycophants who dwindle to a few trusted aides as the war grinds to its horrible conclusion. The smiling, avuncular personality sloughs away throughout his reign revealing a brooding presence much given to rage, denial, and ultimately suicide. In the end, he demands that Germany die alongside him because in his mind, he is Germany.

Read this book if you desire a subjective look at Hitler by a man who witnessed his rise and fall. Read this book if you wish to understand how Hitler seduced Germany, and how Germans willingly allowed it to happen. Finally, read this book if you wish to see how unchecked power in the end destroys what it loves most. 

The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War II

Book Reviewed by J.C. Danville

I reviewed this book that was not intended for me, well maybe, except the first part of the title: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War II".  It happens that I know more than many about WWII but was curious as I find it hard to explain things that should be easy and natural for me and I always try a look at how others do it.

This book will help the innocent and naieve look less so in a discussion around a beer after watching a film about World War II.  This is an American book written for Americans and skimms skims over many British operations.
Some of the chapter's titles will make you smile, tongue in cheek jokes and all, such as "Poles Apart" for the battle of Poland 1939.  It does makes it easier to read.  The whole book is pleasing and well done.  It starts clearly with the causes of World War II which dated back from World War I to it's bunched end to the UN and the beginning of the Cold War, and explains the nazi "doctrine".  It covers a lot of material in clear short bursts of writing with side-bars on people, statistics and some trivia that might even win you a quiz.

It skips over many controversial issues of the war, presenting it all in a very American crusade, black and white, good against evil (That it was!  Except maybe not all the evil was on one side.  Think Staline…). The extensive reading list at the end is possibly one of the great readymade assets of this book for the "idiot" to read.  Some internet links might have been included too, perhaps in the 4th edition?

As a reference book it is well constructed with a "contents at a glance" first followed by detailed content with an alphabetical index at the end.

I regret the absence of footnotes over some of the civilian slaughter and waste of assets from Allied strategic bombings (160000 airmen died from both the US and UK, nearly as many as half the total US casualties!), the delivery to the east block of refugees, and POWs originating from there directly for the goulag or execution squad, the arsenal for the democracies in 39-40? (All was to be paid and delivered by the buyer, the "cash and carry" law which allowed France to pay for but never receive hundreds of planes, the useless destruction of the old Manilla intramuros…)

Of course this was not intended to be something else than what its title said and in that it does the job!

Wildflowers of Terezin by Robert Elmer

Book Review written by Cori Van Housen

Robert Elmer’s tale of WW11 occupied Denmark grabs you from the start with engaging characters and explosive action on the streets of Copenhagen. German forces, meanwhile, plan to round up the country’s Jewish citizens for deportation, and worse. Elmer’s protagonist, the unassuming clergyman, Steffan Peterson, is likeable and humorous. He enjoys a sheltered, bookish life until he meets Hanne Abramsen, a young and determined Jewish nurse with loose connections to the Resistance. An unlikely friendship develops, awakening Steffan’s slumbering spirit, leading him out of the comfortable security of his church and into grave danger, but also deeper, more vibrant faith.

Elmer weaves historical fact seamlessly into his storyline, making this book not only a great read, but interesting and informative. I had never heard of the camp for which the book was named: Czechoslovakia’s Terezin. Nor had I knowledge of conditions in Denmark during the time of the Reich. It was heartening to know that Danish clergy stood against the Nazi agenda, not simply bowing to it as sometimes happened elsewhere. But Elmer neither preaches nor teaches in the usual sense. Instead, Steffan navigates the razor’s edge between obedience to God and obedience to existing (German) authorities. Not until reading the afterword do you realize how much of the story is firmly rooted in actual events, in actual places.
Elmer accomplishes the feat of communicating the terror of war without gratuitous violence or obscenity. The book is well constructed and evenly paced. Or so you think, until half way through you realize it has you by the collar and you are running with it. A sometimes tense, but thoroughly satisfying read.

The Sentinels: Fortunes of War by Gordon Zuckerman

r

First Line: Karl von Schagel paced the drawing room. In the last five minutes, he had probably consulted his pocket watch a dozen times.

Set during World War II, this historical political thriller is the story of six wealthy, brilliant economics students who reunite from several different countries and form a coalition to stop the Nazis. Their plan is to cleverly divert money from Germany’s powerful industrialists, who they believe are fueling the war, and use it for their own purposes. They do this by converting millions of dollars worth of gold. But the Germans soon catch wind that something is amiss and the six sentinels find themselves embroiled in intrigue with their very lives at stake.

Although the cover looks as if this novel is another World War II story, it is not. It deals only with the political climate of that era and provides motivation for the plot to evolve.

The story is very fast-paced with a large cast of characters who are so human with their faults and strengths, that the reader is immediately drawn to them. Political turmoil and romance mix together to form a novel of intense action with a riveting plot. It is a well written, well edited tale. The Sentinels: Fortunes of War is the first book in a series about these Six Sentinels. For more information, visit www.thesentinelseries.com.

1939-Into The Dark by Paula Phelan

The focus of Paula Phelan’s story, 1939 - Into the Dark, published by ZAP Media New York, takes place over a twelve month period with her characters interacting with famous names of the day in both New York Society's arts and entertainment world.



Set during the months before the declaration of war in Europe, Jason Rothman, is writing a play starring Carole Lombard which promises to be a huge success, but he is distracted by the events in Europe.



Having no knowledge of how the US greeted the news and events of the opening months of the war, being weaned on The Blitz, rationing and telegrams received by my family from the War Office, this perspective was what attracted me about this novel.



Consumed with their own problems after the great depression and the threats to playwrights and actors, although most of the characters seem aware of the gathering storm, they are reluctant to do more than discuss its implications dispassionately. Some are even glad to have escaped it, but no one wants to do anything positive.



Miriam, Jason’s wife, is an aspiring poet whose parents are trapped in Germany. The letters they send to Jason and Miriam are distressing, and Jason cannot understand why New York is so ambivalent about what is happening in Europe. Faced with success after many years of hard work, Jason is torn between a desire to do something to help the Jews, and concentrating on his career.



The novel takes the form of short, cameo scenes, each starring a different set of characters; a playwright, an artist, a musician, an architect, an activist and a gangster, the events of their lives, interspersed with press reports of dire warnings about the coming war, mixed in with film reviews. This unusual, fast-paced format was somewhat confusing at first, and I couldn’t get a handle on who the main characters of the book actually were. I also found myself waiting for the rest of the cast to fall in line with the premise that something had to be done about the war in Europe and the atrocities being perpetrated on the Jewish community.



This novel isn’t as simple at that, however and the realisation of how world changing this war would be takes longer to dawn on those watching it from afar, as well as others who turn off the radio due to the burgeoning difficulties of their own lives.



My initial impatience with their lethargy is soon dispelled as Ms Phelan shows me that perhaps they can be excused for their self absorption. Her characters all have intense, interesting lives, and their denial becomes understandable when their own conflicts are taken into account. No one has a free ride in this book, and in their place, I wondered if I would have instantly clamoured to be involved in a conflict everyone hopes will burn out before it becomes too serious.



With the WPA Federal Theatre Project, the Un-American Activities Committee, the Spanish Civil War, and demonstrations by communist unions thrown into the mix, this goes some way to exonerate those who resist involving themselves in a foreign war. Ms Phelan manages to weave them all together in the later stages, where she also makes a comment on the film Wuthering Heights which made me smile.



The characters who stood out for me, apart from Jason and Miriam and their prickly marriage, was Sarah the harpist whose independence and compassion brings some emotion to the series of loosely connected events. Ms Phelan’s meticulous research adds depth and colour to her story, as well as references to Mayor La Guardia, the hedonistic Gables, Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine Hepburn and many others.



1939-Into The Dark is the second of a trilogy, which deals with iconic events in American history in an unusual way. The first novel is 1919 Misfortune’s End, and the next book to be released is 1969 The Dream of Aquarius.

The Trouble with Playboys by Margaret Tanner

When a wealthy Englishman, Paul Ashfield travels to Australia in search of the birth mother he thinks deserted him, he never expects to meet and fall in love with Daphne Clarke. Upon meeting her parents, Paul is horrified by the possibility that they have the same mother. He beats a hasty retreat, believing he has slept with his sister.

Amidst the turmoil of WW2 they meet again in singapore, where he discovers the truth, Daphne is not his sister. They marry as the Japanese pour into Malaya and Singapore teeters on the birnk of invasion. In the chaotic aftermath, each believe the other has died during the bombing. When they finally see each other again, it is in a church, where Paul is about to enter into an arranged marriage.

Broken Rainbows by Catrin Collier (Audiobook)

During World War II, American soldiers arrive at a small Welsh town for training and billotting while they await battle. Most of the town's menfolk have already been on the battlefield and are long gone. Only the womenfolk remain and provide billotting and companionship to the American soldiers. Love, discord, and turmoil arise from the strange mix of characters.

The narrator, Helen Griffin is a resident of the story's setting of Pontypridd. With its numerous characters, she does a great job of narrating the various vocal tones. But as a Brit, her emulation of an American southern accent can be jarring at times, but the impact is minor and the listener can easily overcome the strangeness.

It is a great novel to listen to with numerous colorful characters and a lovely narration.

<