ANNE SEBBA The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Reviewed by Justine Ettler
British historian Anne Sebba’s account of the Nazi death camp describes the dissonance of beautiful music in a place of suffering and death. A monstrous, life-and-death version of sing for your supper, The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz fascinates as it horrifies with...
PHIL CRAIG 1945: The Reckoning. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
This conclusion to Phil Craig’s Finest Hour trilogy shows how, far from marking an end to war and suffering, 1945 created more of it. The world is imperfect, the relationships between and within nations held together by decaying, infected band aids and fraying string....
EVA MENASSE Darkenbloom. Reviewed by Ann Skea
In Austrian writer Eva Menasse’s new novel, the residents of a small border town are shaken when uncomfortable truths from the past come to light. Darkenbloom is a fictitious small town on the Austrian–Hungarian border: ‘A region where great spiritual, national, and...
DAMIEN LEWIS The Flame of Resistance: The untold story of Josephine Baker’s secret war. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
Josephine Baker, the most glamorous and highly paid female entertainer of her time, was also an Allied spy in World War II. In The Flame of Resistance Damien Lewis has drawn on a profusion of new historical material, including previously undisclosed letters and...
DOMINIC SMITH Return to Valetto. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The new novel from the author of The Electric Hotel uncovers wartime secrets in an Italian village. Hugh Fraser is an American academic whose Italian mother, Hazel, used to take him to her home village in Italy for their summer holidays. He has fond memories of...
CATHERINE CHIDGEY Remote Sympathy. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
Catherine Chidgey’s latest novel has been shortlisted for the 2022 Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize. Buchenwald Concentration Camp was liberated by US Forces on 11 April 1945. In the days immediately following, the Americans...
JOHN HUGHES The Dogs. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
The new novel from award-winning writer John Hughes explores the transmission of trauma down the generations. Memory is a major theme in John Hughes’s corpus. The Dogs, his seventh book and fourth novel, reverberates with intergenerational family trauma and the ghosts...
ROBERT GOTT The Orchard Murders. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
The fourth book in Robert Gott’s ‘Murders’ series frees its cast from the constraints of the newly formed Homicide Squad and plunges them straight into a baffling case that threatens many of their number. Readers who are new to this series might be fine starting...
SUZANNE LEAL The Deceptions. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
The deceptions in Suzanne Leal’s third novel span World War II Czechoslovakia and the Holocaust to present-day Sydney. The genesis of this novel was the story of a Czech gendarme who had formed a relationship with a young Jewish woman he was guarding. Leal had...
REBECCA STARFORD The Imitator. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Set in wartime London, Rebecca Starford’s debut novel brings a true story of espionage to life. When I was halfway through this book I discovered, by accident, that it is based on real wartime espionage that occurred in London between 1939 and 1940. Evelyn, the...
CATRINE CLAY The Good Germans: Resisting the Nazis 1933–1945. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
In telling their personal stories, Catrine Clay brings to life the Germans who resisted Nazism, reminding us that the Fuhrer’s cheering crowds did not represent everyone. Catrine Clay is an award-winning BBC documentary-maker and author of three previous works...
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