The Woman on the Train

Finished July 23

The Woman on the Train by Rupert Colley

This short historical novel covers three time periods. The earliest is in World War II where the main character, a young man doing an errand for the resistance is saved from interrogation by a woman in the same train car. She speaks in German to the authorities both on the train and in the station, and the man is left alone. 

Two decades later, the man is now a famous French conductor, and the woman comes to him and says that she may ask something from him in return for her actions back during the war. When the time comes and she asks for his help, we see his struggles as he decides whether to tell of his experience with her back then, or not, and the effect it might have on his career if he does.

The last time period is another two decades later, when a journalist doing a story about famous people who have fallen out of the public gaze, asks for an interview. This interview is the frame for the story, as he tells the reporter about what happened earlier and why he is where he is now. 

I found this an interesting tale from an ethical point of view. What the woman was asking him was to tell the truth about his experience during the war, but because of other things the woman had done, she was not looked on favourably, and this stigma would have possible effects on how people viewed him, although again, he would be merely telling the truth about his own experience. It brings to light the way that public perception, emotions around trauma, and how the past influences the present all have ripples beyond the immediate situation. 

Keep Saying Their Names

Finished December 8

Keep Saying Their Names by Simon Stranger, translated by Matt Bagguley

This Norwegian novel was a winner of the Norwegian Booksellers' Prize in 2018 and has a unique structure. It is set in 3 storylines, one modern day, one starting pre-World War II and following a character through his youth into adulthood and his actions during the war, and one starting a few years after the war around a family of Jewish Norwegians. It is structured alphabetically, with each chapter starting with a letter of the alphabet and having statements and discussion around words starting with that letter. I can't imagine how difficult this was to do in translation. This is the first book by this author to be translated into English.

The modern day part of the story features a writer unnamed, who is researching the Jewish family that they married into and what happened to them during the war, occasionally reaching back further, and reaching out to people they were connected with. In particular they are focused on the father of the Komissar family, who was killed in custody during the war. 

The one character, Henry Oliver Rinnan, gets followed from a difficult childhood in poverty, getting bullied and building a desire to be successful and show off that success to those who previously bullied them. This man has that drive to be lauded and to please those in authority, to be a leader, as his driving force. He has no ethics, no sincere feelings for others, even his wife and children, just that need. When the Germans invade in WWII, it is them he tries to please and thus he takes advantage of and betrays so many of his countrymen and women by becoming a double agent for the Nazis.

After the war, when Komissar's son Gerson and his wife move into the house used by Rinnan as a jail and torture chamber for resisters, the history of the house affects their marriage.

This is a story both intimate and national, going deep into people's lives, but also reflecting the history of the country. 

The Silent Assassin

Finished February 1
The Silent Assassin by Lori Andrews

This thriller features a female doctor, Alexandra Blake,  who specializes in communicable disease research and works for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP). Her father died in Vietnam when she was a young child, and she had an unconventional childhood. She is involved with a musician, but the two haven't really defined their relationship beyond the present. As the book opens, he is leaving for a European tour, and she is called in to attend an autopsy on a man found in a dumpster, with some conflicting clues about his status and death. She is also involved in a project to repatriate some skulls of Vietnamese people that were brought back to the United States as war trophies by soldiers. Although confiscated as soon as they arrived in the U.S., the skull have been in storage, untouched, for years. Back in the war, they were painted and used in disrespectful ways. Alex is asked what she can do to remove the evidence of this, and is ordered to participate in the repatriation ceremony. She is also told to identify at least one of the Vietnamese victims.
As she works on these projects, she is drawn back into her own personal history and the loss of her father.
This novel is part of a series, but I haven't yet read others. I enjoyed the character and the story. The action moves quickly, and there is lots of suspense and drama, and several more people die before the final act. The personalities of the characters play a role, and it was a page-turning read.

The Unquiet Dead (Reread)

Finished October 15
The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan

I read this first back in 2016, but it was the choice for my book club this month, so I reread it, and thoroughly enjoyed it the second time, seeing additional themes around mothers, female sexuality, and friendship. I've since read two following books in the series and am pleased that they still deal with complex issues, and that the characters continue to develop.

Greeks Bearing Gifts

Finished June 5
Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr

This is part of the series featuring Bernie Gunther, but the first one that I have read.
This story takes place in 1957, and begins in Munich, where Bernie has taken on a new identity as Christof Ganz, and is working as mortuary attendant in a hospital. When the body of a man killed due to an explosion of a war period bomb needs to be identified by one of the men injured in the same incident, Ganz must show the body to the man and one of the policemen in attendance recognizes him. As he gets drawn into a situation that he knows will create problems for him, he trusts his instincts and goes for help to a man he knows, who also has involvement with the blackmailer.
As a result Ganz gets recommended for a job as an insurance adjustor. His detective skills make the job a good fit for him, and he gets brought in to cover for another colleague in the insurance on a boat that was sunk in Greece.
As he meets with the man at the Athens office of the insurance company, and gets to know him, he also lets his instincts lead him to follow the man claiming the loss. The subsequent death of the man raises other issues, and he ends up working with a Greek police detective to try to find the killer behind this and other deaths.
The case takes him to local lawyers, accused war criminals, museum curators, a beautiful young woman, and an arm of the Israeli state.
This is a complex case, with a reach back into the war years, with Gunther/Ganz wanting to do the right thing to atone for his country's actions in the war, but also save his own skin.
I quite enjoyed it.