Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "nazis"

Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou
Steven Burgauer
Publisher: BATTLEGROUND PRESS; 1 edition (November 11, 2016)


Don’t let the rather misleading title of Steven Burgauer’s new World War II novel fool you. Yes, there’s a ring of Nazi spies plotting to blow up a boat building factory in New Orleans. But the scope of the book reaches far beyond Louisiana and involves many more characters and situations than the small band of unlucky German agents.

The various settings indeed center on New Orleans where Andrew Jackson Higgins, an actual historical figure who in reality did what is described in the novel, is building landing craft for the allies, especially boats that can travel in shallow water, land safely on shores and beaches, and return to the water by a simple change to the propellers. But we also spend much time in New Orleans bordellos and meet mixed-blood prostitutes, some keenly interested in Haitian voodoo with helpful connections for the U.S. government. These connections include Sicilian mob families who provide helpful intelligence on the German and Italian defenses of Sicily where an allied invasion is planned using the Higgins boats.

But we also spend considerable time with Navajo code-talkers before we spend even more time in bloody South Pacific island hopping by U.S. forces. We go to London and visit British intelligence where one Commander Ian Fleming makes several appearances. Burgauer throws in scenes in Cuba, an amphibious invasion by a U.S. squad in Tunisia, as well as a number of U.S. Locations described in many a soldier’s backstory.

In short, a lot of moving parts keep this story going with so much rich detail providing every page with verisimilitude, notably in the settings and multi-cultural panorama of the mixed-blood women, soldiers and officers, Mafia bosses and henchmen, and the Navajo code-talkers. Considerable research is demonstrated from street slang to military technology which, admittedly, often slows the flow in order to get in historical descriptions from World War I battles to engineering specs for Higgin’s boats. Sometimes, these bits are a tad repetitious, as when Burgauer makes sure all readers know what the acronym, SNAFU, stands for.

While the title isn’t the best choice for what this book includes and some passages can easily be skimmed, Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou is for World War II buffs, those who like historical fiction in general, fans of New Orleans legends and lore, and readers who like espionage yarns spun out with an epic sweep. In other words, it’s a book for a wide variety of readers.


This review was first published by BookPleasures.com on Nov. 21, 2016 at:
goo.gl/FKoKjW


Purchase Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou at:
https://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Saboteurs...

Altar of Resistance (World War II Trilogy Book 2)
Samuel Marquis
(Mount Sopris Publishing, January 24, 2017).
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B01NCWYIH1
https://www.amazon.com/Altar-Resistan...


Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton

To date, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing two previous Samuel Marquis novels: The Coalition, a political assassination thriller, and Bodyguard of Deception: Volume One of his World War II Trilogy.

Now, I’ve read Altar of Resistance, the second book in that trilogy. Without question, Marquis has really upped his game with this one. In Bodyguard, much of the setting was in the Rocky Mountains where two escaped Nazi POW brothers with very different attitudes try to send secret information back to Germany. One is a die-hard, ruthless Nazi; the other is a loyal German whose patriotism does mean national pride but doesn’t extend to Hitler. In the mix, their Americanized mother tries to make sure law enforcement and counter-espionage entities chasing her sons capture and not kill them.

In Altar, Marquis compounds that family dynamic with a more epic sweep set during the Allied invasion of Italy, with many events occurring in the occupied, besieged city of Rome in 1943-1944. SS Colonel Wilhelm Hollmann represents the Germans trying to control the Italians while fulfilling the dictates of Adolf Hitler that include mass slaughters of Jews and the Italian resistance. He has two children. One is Major John Bridger of the American-Canadian First Special Service Force who has changed his name to distance himself from a family he feels is cursed , after his mother tried to kill his father 11 years before. His half-sister is Teresa Kruger, who becomes a partisan fighter killing Germans on Roman streets as she wishes to destroy the father she despises.

While we see Bridger go behind enemy lines and narrowly escape torture and death before joining the Allied invasion, we also witness Teresa and her resistance compatriots trying to fight their oppressors. We see Hollman interact with a large number of German and Italian fascists engaged in savage reprisals and cruelty of every variety. We also see Pope Pius XII wrestling with what his proper role should be in protecting the Jews and his people. Perhaps it’s the story of the Pope that could be the most controversial element of the novel.

For decades, the Pope’s role during the war has been debated with no easy resolutions. Did he do enough to protect the Jews? Why didn’t he be more public in denunciations of Hitler? In Marquis’s portrayal, the Pope wanted to preserve the Vatican’s neutrality, feared there would be harsher reprisals if he said much publicly, felt he couldn’t fairly denounce Hitler without doing the same to the Russians, and seemed very concerned about his august presence being forced out of Rome. He’s described as a secret agent for the allies, supporting three assassination attempts on Hitler, and he made all Catholic institutions in and around Rome safe havens for Jews for as long as he could before German betrayal.

With such a complex tableau with many significant players, no synopsis can possibly do the book justice. It’s more than evident considerable research went into establishing the events, settings, and especially the characters. In several appendices, Marquis spells out the biographies of the actual personages that populate his novel and explains who the models were for his fictional characters. For me, it’s astonishing how much went into this book that was published so quickly after his other recent novels. The man is prolific as well as deep. I look forward to volume three of the trilogy which, no doubt will come our way sometime in 2017.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Jan. 24, 2016:
goo.gl/mZj8B5

The Fourth Pularchek: A Novel of Suspense (A Nick Lassiter-Skyler Thriller Book 3)
Publisher: Mount Sopris Publishing (6 June 2017)
Sold by: Amazon Asia-Pacific Holdings Private Limited
ASIN: B071RH5WYH
https://www.amazon.in/Fourth-Pularche...
Reviewed for BookPleasures.com by Dr. Wesley Britton:

Back in Jan 2016, I had the pleasure of reviewing The Coalition, book two in Samuel Marquis’s Nick Lassiter-Skyler Thriller Series. At the time, I wrote “novelist Samuel Marquis has accomplished something rather rare. In The Coalition, Marquis has injected fresh air into the often thread-bare genre of political conspiracy and assassination thrillers . . . only part of the saga deals with conspirators and killers and Machiavellian power moves. Much of the story deals with character regrets, guilt, and self-discovery on very personal levels that humanize even the villains.”

I could make the same claims for the Fourth Pularchek. This time around, the multi-faceted female assassin Skyler from The Coalition and Nick Lassiter from 2015’s The Devil’s Brigade become major characters together in yet another epic struggle. Again, the lines between good and evil, right and wrong are as blurry as any moral distinctions can be. Explorations into personal motivations, moral codes, and especially family history get even deeper in Marquis’s new novel.

For example, Nick Lassiter learns his biological father isn’t the man he thought but is rather the Polish billionaire and intelligence commander Stanislaw Pularchek. Pularchek heads an organization that hunts down and kills Islamic terrorists but more particularly ex and neo-Nazis, especially those connected to genocidal atrocities during World War II in Poland. Once Pularchek learns he has a biological heir, he does all he can to give Lassiter a full indoctrination into his family’s history which partially explains Pularchek’s series of vendettas against those he sees as pure evil.

One of Pularchek’s weapons is the female assassin Skyler who is fulfilling a promise to be a guardian angel for Pularchek while she hopes to finally retire from the sniper game. In fact, Skyler becomes something of a secondary character in the book, lurking in the background protecting her boss. At the same time, the world’s intelligence agencies are puzzled as they are certain Pularchek is pulling many deadly strings but he always has a very public alibi. There always seems to be a Pularchek double at the scene of the crimes and many speculate the billionaire is cloning himself.

The main adversary to Pularchek, Skyler, and Lassiter is German intelligence operative Angela Wolff, granddaughter of a Nazi general who wasn’t prosecuted at the Nuremburg trials. In Angela’s view, she is due an inheritance from her grandfather that Pularchek now possesses. Angela is willing to destroy anyone or anything that gets in her way.

While we learn much about Wolff’s motivations and desires, there’s really nothing to redeem her actions. We also meet other reprehensible characters in governmental agencies wanting to keep secrets secret or profit from the Nazi treasures themselves. Perhaps it’s not surprising the main protagonists don’t just battle with Wolf and her German mercenaries, but with powerful higher ups that nearly derail all of Pularchek’s efforts to cut down on the number of international villains.

The story is one set in a variety of vividly described settings from Washington D.C. to Berlin to Warsaw to Vienna. The action is non-stop and gripping with no shortages of surprises, especially in the final chapters. In the novel, Marquis brings together many of his established tropes and interests, notably incorporating his in-depth knowledge of World War II. (Another of Marquis’s trilogies focuses on WWII with Bodyguard of Deception and Altar of Resistance, the first two volumes published to date.) The Fourth Pularchek, a very enigmatic title, is scheduled to come out on the anniversary of D-Day, June 6.

If you haven’t tried a Samuel Marquis novel yet, here’s a good one to get introduced. If you’re already a fan of the award-winning novelist, this one won’t disappoint.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on May 5, 2017:
goo.gl/C1s3kG

or

http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitep...

A Question of Allegiance
Peter Vollmer
Print Length: 354 pages
Publisher: Endeavour Press (January 11, 2017)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B01NBUBPSX
https://www.amazon.com/Question-Alleg...

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

I may not have been the very first one, but I was certainly among the earliest reviewers of the novels of South African writer Peter Borchard a.k.a. Peter Vollmer. My reviews began with 2011’s Relentless Pursuit, continued with 2012’s Diamonds Are But Stone, and 2015’s Left For Dead. Of special interest was his 2015 Per Fine Ounce, a continuation novel featuring a character named Geoffrey Peace created by fellow South African novelist Geoffrey Jenkins, a writer with notable connections with Ian Fleming.

In my earlier reviews, I observed that Vollmer is a more than worthy successor to the very successful Jenkins as both writers share much in common. For one matter, both are very adept with descriptions of both characters and settings. Both can take the reader to international locations sketched in vivid detail, no matter what era of history is being used. Both can give the reader fast-paced thrill-rides in stories difficult to pigeon-hole into any particular genre.

A Question of Allegiance is narrated in the first person by Matthias Aschenborn, the son of a well-to-do Southwestern African farmer and businessman with strong roots in Germany. The story opens as the Nazis are coming to power in the Fatherland, and Matthias and his brother George travel to Germany hoping for a university education there. However, Matthias is conscripted and he is trained as an aviator destined for service in the Luftwaffe. He quickly realizes he’s a natural at flying and begins a romance with his trainer’s daughter, Wiebke Osterkamp. George also has a romantic relationship, but it’s problematic as Ruth is a Jew. The issue of Jews in Nazi Germany is a constant concern in the first chapters of the book as none of the Aschenborn’s support the Nazis and have many Jewish friends and business associates.

Thereafter, much of the book reads like Aschenborn’s wartime memoirs as he sketches his adventures in battles in Spain, Russia, and then back to Germany. Some passages show him a man women seem to find irresistible and some sections describe grisly war atrocities. In the waning days of the war, the Russians capture him and transport him to a Russian gulag, sentenced to 10 years hard labor. To say more would take this review into the realm of spoilers. I will say there comes a point where it seems this book is really two novels in one.

Clearly, the main audience A Question of Allegiance should appeal to should be readers who like historical fiction, especially those interested in the European theatre of World War II. But you don’t have to be an aficionado of the era and setting to appreciate the very human saga of Matthias Aschenborn, especially as he doesn’t simply tell us what he did, when, and where, but also shares his feelings and thoughts and reveals the why’s of his actions. These “whys” likely were the same for many Germans swept up in the hard tide of history.

Even after all these years, for many Peter Vollmer remains an unknown quantity. A Question of Allegiance may be the book to change all that.

Wes Britton’s 2011 review of Relentless Pursuit was posted at:
http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitep...

Wes Britton’s 2012 review of Diamonds Are But Stone is up at:
http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitep...

Wes Britton’s 2015 article,” The Re-Boot of PER FINE OUNCE: A Continuation Novel That Isn’t What You Think” was published at:
https://literary007.com/2015/03/25/th...

Wes Britton’s 2015 review of Left for Dead is up at:
http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitep...

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Sept. 23, 2017 at:
http://dpli.ir/LtmtBi

D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
Sarah Rose
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown; 1st Edition (April 23, 2019)
ISBN-10: 045149508X
ISBN-13: 978-0451495082
https://www.amazon.com/D-Day-Girls-Re...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

With D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose has provided us with a valuable service not only in terms of setting the historical record straight for the women of the S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive), but for the history of the treatment of women in general even when they gave their countries the very finest in the way of self-sacrifice, courage, and heroism.

The stories of three women saboteurs , in particular, demonstrate just what skilled and brave women contributed during the occupation of France by the Nazis from 1939 to 1945. We are told about scrappy Andrée Borrel, a demolitions expert eluding the Gestapo while blowing up the infrastructure the occupying German army relied on. The "Queen" of the S.O.E. was Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent Parisian who lost everything due to her wartime service. And there was my favorite heroine of the bunch, Odette Sansom, who saw S.O.E. service as a means to lead a more meaningful life away from an unhappy marriage. While she finds love with a fellow agent named Peter Churchill, she ended up being a two year prisoner, horribly tortured by the Germans. These women, along with their compatriots both male and female, helped lay the groundwork for D-Day by innumerable acts of sabotage, orchestrated prison breaks, and the gathering of intelligence for the allied war effort.

But D-Day Girls has a much deeper and wider canvas that three biographies. The stories of the three spies are painted against a detailed backdrop that includes the policy making of the Allies leadership, how the chiefs of the S.O.E. came to involve women in their behind-the-lines operations, and how the changes in the war effort shaped what the various operatives were and were unable to accomplish. We learn about their training, the reactions of male superiors to the use of women at all, the bungles as well as the successes, the very human dramas the women became involved in, the competition between the various intelligence agencies, how the spy networks were unraveled by the successful Nazi infiltration, and the very vivid settings from which the women operated. We learn about the costly mistakes some operatives performed, the lack of following the procedures they were taught, and the process of getting the materials and new agents parachuted in from RAF planes.

Rose is able to avoid a dry retelling of all these events with almost a novelist's descriptive eye. For example, she doesn't merely tell us about an explosion resulting from a well-place bomb--she gives us a sensory breakdown of what happened moment by moment, second by second in color, smell, and sound. She doesn't merely tell us about the black parachute drops, but how they took place out in the quiet French countryside.

It's difficult to lay this book down as we revisit often forgotten corners of World War II history with often fresh perspectives. Many revelations are only possible now that many formerly classified documents have been brought to light and many misogynist points-of-view have been replaced by what actually happened.

In many ways, the tales of what happened to these women after the war ended are the saddest passages in the book. Because they were not part of any official military service, they were denied the full recognition and appreciation they deserved. Even though they had been indispensable during the war, after VE day they were relegated to the second-class status of women everywhere. There's more than one lesson in all that.


So readers who love spy stories, those interested in World War II, devotees of women's studies, and those focused on D-Day celebrations this year shouldn't be the only audience D-Day Girls should enjoy. It's a wonderfully vivid and descriptive multi-layered account that should engage any reader who likes well-written non-fiction.


Note: I'm aware that this year, a related book, Madame Foucade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Larges Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson was also published. It's on my summer reading list as well. Spy buffs, stay tuned--


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XA7U

Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler
Lynne Olson
Hardcover:464 pages
Publisher: Random House (March 5, 2019)
ISBN-10:0812994760
ISBN-13:978-0812994766
https://www.amazon.com/Madame-Fourcad...

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton


I picked up my copy of Madame Fourcade's Secret War at the same time I read Sarah Rose's D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II. After all, both books were published only a month apart, perfectly timed to reach readers interested in this summer's 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. I admit a unique motive. I wanted to troll for details I could use in a spy story I'm working on set on a different planet dominated by women engaged in a brutal war.
I easily got my money's worth from both titles. For readers with more normal inclinations, I can recommend Madame Fourcade's Secret War just as enthusiastically as I did D-Day Girls earlier this month.
While there's obvious overlap in context and setting, these two explorations of women spies travel very different roads. D-Day Girls focuses on female members of the S.O.E., the Special Operations Executive. Madame Fourcade didn't work for the S.O.E. but instead headed an independent network called "Alliance" that reported to England's MI6. Sabotage wasn't Fourcade's main purpose, gathering intelligence was.
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was a complex woman battling her way through a man's world. She built up the Alliance network, especially clandestine radio operators and couriers, then rebuilt it again after the Gestapo gutted Alliance operations and rebuilt it again and again after dangerous duels with the Gestapo. Much of her time, Fourcade lived like a fugitive on the run using various aliases and disguises. Some of her most interesting adventures included harrowing escapes from German prisons.
Some readers are likely going to turn a sour eye on Fourcade due to her very non-maternal treatment of her children. At the onset of the war, she had two youngsters who she quickly had flee to Switzerland without her. During the war, she bore another baby she entrusted to caretakers and went years at a time without seeing any of them. According to Olson, Fourcade had little to say on this in her 1972 memoir, Noah's Ark, but expressed grief for many of the agents she worked with or recruited who didn't survive the war. Her post-war children would later say their mother was never especially maternal. Instead, her Alliance members would be her family until her death in 1989.
It's important to know the Allies learned about the V2 rocket due to the Alliance network and the Normandy invasion was greatly facilitated due to their intelligence. Alliance was the longest lasting and most successful resistance network in France even if Fourcade wasn't destined to earn all the credit she deserved, thanks largely to murky French politics and good ole sexism.
If you're interested in French-set World War II stories, spy stories, or women's studies, like D-Day Girls, this biography is well worth your time. It centers on the legacy of one woman but it also includes the tales of some of the more important Alliance leaders, the ways of espionage in the era, as well as painting what life was like in occupied France.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 25, 2019:
https://waa.ai/3uLD

My review of Sarah Rose's D-Day Girls was first published at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XA7U