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GHOSTS OF BUNGO SUIDO

A first-rate yarn of war and the sea that will keep the reader on edge right to the end.

A World War II naval thriller in the tradition of Edward L. Beach's Run Silent, Run Deep, pitting an American submarine against daunting odds.

In 1944, the U.S. is pushing the Japanese empire back to its home turf, one bloody island at a time. In this struggle, Cmdr. Gar Hammond has two special missions. The first is to captain his submarine through Bungo Suido, the narrow strait connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Japanese Inland Sea, and torpedo Japan’s massive new aircraft carrier. Five other subs have tried it and are now “on eternal patrol” at the bottom of the ocean. Yet his even more crucial mission is to bring a man named Hashimoto safely back to his home soil. Hammond initially objects to a “Jap” on his sub, and his superiors refuse to tell him why. Even readers who might guess the reason will be swept up in the action-filled plot as Hammond’s Dragonfish tries to survive the Bungo Suido minefields. Like any good hero, Hammond has his flaws. While obeying orders, he sometimes goes beyond them. And when he absolutely must keep his mouth shut, he talks. Will these traits get him killed? Does his behavior at one point amount to treason? The story is full of surprising twists and spectacular explosions, with many of the best scenes taking place outside his Dragonfish. The pace occasionally slows to allow the reader to stop for a breath in Hawaii. There, far from the fighting, admirals plan strategies while a woman adds a layer of humanity to Hammond’s life. But just when it seems that Hammond is out of the picture, he comes back again to witness some of the worst horrors mankind can inflict.

A first-rate yarn of war and the sea that will keep the reader on edge right to the end.

Pub Date: July 30, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-250-01802-1

Page Count: 352

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: April 6, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013

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THE NIGHTINGALE

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

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ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.

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Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.

In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.

Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.

Pub Date: May 6, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014

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