A vivid history of wartime heroism.
A true-life thriller centers around a defiant woman who spied for Britain.
Loftis (Into the Lion’s Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real Life Inspiration for James Bond, 2016) recounts the story of Odette Sansom (1912-1995), a Frenchwoman living in England, wife of an Englishman and mother of 3 daughters, who was recruited into Britain’s Special Operations Executive program to conduct espionage in France during World War II. Drawing on interviews, oral histories, and memoirs of key players (including Odette’s commander, lover, and eventually second husband, Peter Churchill), Loftis creates a tense narrative filled with verbatim conversations among more than 30 main characters. Each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and though the prose is peppered with clichés—Peter and Odette were drawn to each other “like magnets”; they were “at the bridge of the river of love”; when the Gestapo added Peter’s name to their blacklist, “it seemed only a matter of time that lady luck would succumb to the odds”—the author creates a readable page-turner about Odette’s dangerous missions. Although at first reluctant to join the SOE, Odette desperately wanted to help the war effort. Leaving her daughters in a convent school and with relatives, she joined the rigorous training program, becoming proficient with a wide range of weapons, learning the fine points of spycraft—such as distinguishing the uniforms and ranks of Vichy, Axis, Gestapo, SS, and Luftwaffe soldiers—and perfecting her new identity with the code name Lise. Once under Peter’s command in France, she proved herself fearless. Hunted by the Germans, in 1943, Odette and Peter were captured, imprisoned, and tortured. Loftis describes Odette’s ordeal in grisly detail, and she spent months certain that she was about to be executed. But two lies saved her: She pretended that she and Peter were married (they would be after the war) and that Peter was related to Winston Churchill. After their defeat, the Gestapo hoped to use her as a bargaining chip.
A vivid history of wartime heroism.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9865-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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