A fast-paced and immersive wartime adventure yarn.
In Miller’s sequel novel, American merchant marine Capt. Jake Rogers and his faithful crew of sailors outpace ruthless Nazis on land and sea as they pursue another rescue mission.
When readers first meet Rogers, he's got his hands full evading U-boats that are prowling the cold waters of the North Atlantic during World War II. Few men are better suited to lead a daring rescue mission deep inside occupied Holland than this skilled sea captain, and he proves himself worthy of his international comrades-in-arms’ steadfast devotion. Nazi SS officers and their craven collaborators are holding a Dutch Jewish woman named Miriam Maduro, the love of Rogers’ life, inside occupied Holland’s infamous Oranjehotel prison. In this follow-up to The Hunt for The Peggy C(2022), Miller juxtaposes these two opposing forces wonderfully well through the use of clear, economical prose that manages to convey pathos and high adventure in equal measure. Careful, specific attention to detail, as in descriptions of the clothing worn by the resistance fighters and the German soldiers (“an SS officer’s gray wool cap with white piping around the crown, the Nazi eagle and skull on the front, and a silver bullion chin cord strapped across the shiny black Vulkanfiber visor”) lend a powerful authenticity to the harrowing world that Miller creates. Maduro, whose imprisonment inspires Rogers’ incredible acts of bravery, is no damsel in distress; she’s just as heroic as he is, disguising herself as a Red Cross medico named Hedda ten Boom in a bold attempt to help as many concentration camp prisoners as she possibly can before she’s captured herself. Stark depictions of Miriam’s confinement are harrowing and stand on their own without resorting to sentimentality. When Miriam gets an opportunity to deliver an act of retribution, Miller renders it without moralizing or commentary. Indeed, action never fails to reveal character throughout this brisk thriller.
A fast-paced and immersive wartime adventure yarn.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781610886437
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Bancroft Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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