Genre: Historical
Fiction
Description:
“It is autumn of 1938, in Hitler’s Germany, in the capital city of
Berlin, perhaps a month before the devastating anti-Jewish violence of
Kristallnacht. Three Jewish boys have received new bicycles — because their
family has, with difficulty, arranged to leave Germany, and they will not be
allowed to take much cash with them. Two of the boys are experienced
bicyclists, but the youngest is less so. On a downtown street, the latter’s
lack of skill causes an accident. And the traffic policeman on the scene wears,
just visible under his uniform, the brown shirt of a member of Hitler's storm
troopers.
What did the policeman do? The answer is known, because the preceding
paragraph describes an actual event. But why did the policeman make the choice
he did? What life did he live that led him to make it? And what happened to
him, while the boys and their family escaped, lived, and thrived? This novel
imagines possible answers to these questions. In doing so, it takes the reader
into the heart of the experience of wartime, and the repercussions of such
conflict for years thereafter.”
Author:
“Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut
Yankee, but eventually settled in Bloomington, Indiana. She now considers
herself a Hoosier. She is an appellate attorney, photographer, and mother of
two.
Wyle's thoughtful and compassionate fiction
includes SF, historical romance, and fantasy. She has also collaborated with
several wonderful illustrators to produce picture books. Relying on her legal
background, she has written one nonfiction resource, explaining American law to
authors, law students, and anyone else interested in better understanding the
legal landscape. Wyle's voice is the product of a lifetime spent reading both
literary and genre fiction. Her personal history has led her to focus on often-intertwined
themes of family, communication, the impossibility of controlling events, and
the persistence of unfinished business.”
Appraisal:
I loved the premise of this book. People often wonder how someone like
Hitler could rise to power and why people didn’t recognize the issues and push
back. This book starts with the real story of a German policeman who kind of
did push back in a subtle way and then imagines his back story, what led him to
that point and where things might have gone from there. It makes for an
extremely interesting story. This should get you thinking, both how you would
react if you were in a situation like the policeman who is the book’s
protagonist and how some things in the current world feel a bit too much like
those times leading up to World War II. A good read that I’d highly recommend.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: *****
Five Star
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words
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