Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
Excellent WW2 story. Very good characters and well written - couldn't put it down.
Greg Iles is an intelligent and secretly snarky writer. I've read several of his novels and one of his hallmarks for me is that he playfully tweaks the reader in creating heroes out of people who in real life the public despises; for example, criminal hackers who steal money and 40-year-old men who have affairs with high school teens. I call it playful because in most cases I find myself rooting for the good guy narrator to defeat the bad guys, only to realize later after finishing I was rooting for someone society would call a sick pedophile, for example, although a 40-year-old teacher having sex with 16 year olds isn't as horrible as with a toddler. It did give me the shudders, though, because I mindlessly enjoyed the murder mystery. (The big reveal about the 'hero's' affair was near the end of the book.) Despite the sneaky way Iles uses fabulous writing and customary themes to bring out knee-jerk responses to heroic actions by scumbags, I like his novels. But I feel dirty.....
Not this time. His heroes are 100% heroic in "Black Cross". At last!
It's World War II. The British have learned the Nazis are developing a gas which kills on contact with skin and that they are testing it on Totenhausen camp prisoners, half of whom are Jews. The Allies do not have anything as powerful. The British are in despair over the naive Americans who cannot accept that the Nazis would dare use this new gas, Soman, because it is so horrible. So behind Eisenhower's back, Churchill enlists a pacifist American chemical scientist and medical doctor, Mark McConnell, and Jonas Stern, German Jew and warrior soldier, on a mission to prove the gas exists and to find out how it is made, and secondarily, to use Allied supplies of Sarin to gas the camp where the more powerful Soman is being made to prove to the Germans that the Allies can and would use gas if the Nazis used the Soman. Complications abound: the opposition of the Americans, the pacifism of McConnell so that Churchill must hide the secondary part of the plan from the chemical expert, and not disclosing to Stern that despite extraction planning, the British don't expect the two commandos to actually survive. Meanwhile, Rachel Jansen, new Jewish prisoner and survivor of Nazi transportation to Totenhausen, is accustoming herself to the new dreadful life of the camp. Her two little children, 3-year-old Jan and 2-year-old Hannah, have survived the initial imprisonment, but her husband and father-in-law have been shot on the first day. While death is a guard's whim away, this is not a work camp. The prisoners are all to be used as guinea pigs in medical experiments, so the prisoners live in fear of being picked any hour for grisly laboratory tortures. Dozens die every day under the camp's regimen.
Who will survive?
This is a great read, a very exciting thriller as well as a fact-based historical fiction. However, once again the utter madness of the Nazis is on display, and as as usual, a fictional writer must tone down the actual historical depravities of the Nazis to not distract the reader, which the author mentions in an afterword. We REALLY must never forget.....
Not this time. His heroes are 100% heroic in "Black Cross". At last!
It's World War II. The British have learned the Nazis are developing a gas which kills on contact with skin and that they are testing it on Totenhausen camp prisoners, half of whom are Jews. The Allies do not have anything as powerful. The British are in despair over the naive Americans who cannot accept that the Nazis would dare use this new gas, Soman, because it is so horrible. So behind Eisenhower's back, Churchill enlists a pacifist American chemical scientist and medical doctor, Mark McConnell, and Jonas Stern, German Jew and warrior soldier, on a mission to prove the gas exists and to find out how it is made, and secondarily, to use Allied supplies of Sarin to gas the camp where the more powerful Soman is being made to prove to the Germans that the Allies can and would use gas if the Nazis used the Soman. Complications abound: the opposition of the Americans, the pacifism of McConnell so that Churchill must hide the secondary part of the plan from the chemical expert, and not disclosing to Stern that despite extraction planning, the British don't expect the two commandos to actually survive. Meanwhile, Rachel Jansen, new Jewish prisoner and survivor of Nazi transportation to Totenhausen, is accustoming herself to the new dreadful life of the camp. Her two little children, 3-year-old Jan and 2-year-old Hannah, have survived the initial imprisonment, but her husband and father-in-law have been shot on the first day. While death is a guard's whim away, this is not a work camp. The prisoners are all to be used as guinea pigs in medical experiments, so the prisoners live in fear of being picked any hour for grisly laboratory tortures. Dozens die every day under the camp's regimen.
Who will survive?
This is a great read, a very exciting thriller as well as a fact-based historical fiction. However, once again the utter madness of the Nazis is on display, and as as usual, a fictional writer must tone down the actual historical depravities of the Nazis to not distract the reader, which the author mentions in an afterword. We REALLY must never forget.....
This spy/action/suspense novel set during World War II is longer than most books I attempt to read. 560 pages. However in the audio version, the length did seem less. It did suffer from a few flaccid scenes, and an epilogue that felt like a cheat in a few ways. But despite those weaknesses, the vast majority of the chapters consist of prose which kept me reading, and wanting to know what happened next.
It does get a bit repetitive in the final third, though it does avoid monotony. I suppose both the writing and the subject matter account for that.
The characters, though not the most deeply drawn nonetheless held my interest throughout. I can't say I fell in love with any of them, or that I miss them now that I have finished the book, but in the very least they were entertaining or interesting enough to stick with for the duration. Even the villains, which in this case are THE villains, the Nazis, were drawn with some degree of humanity and depth to them. The stereotypical two dimensional Nazi Monster is avoided, while still leaving absolutely no doubt that we are in fact dealing with the Nazis of history.
On top of all of this, more than once the moral complexities of the actions being taken in order to accomplish the mission and defeat the enemy are examined. If nothing else, Black Cross brings up some fascinating challenges to the reader's sense of what is and is not morally permissible in service to a greater good.
I don't know that I cared for the bookends, wherein the entire story in rather detailed omniscience at times is somehow told by one single man whom was not at all involved in any of the events depicted. You do tend to forget all about this by the time you get into the book, (with the exception of an extraneous jump back into the meta setting of the book...present day Atlanta, half way through the story.) I can't help but think the entire thing may have been more potent without same.
Despite a few silly red herrings, gratuitous, (though not graphic) sex, and a bit of stalling towards weaker suspense near the end, Black Cross is a cut above the usual action/adventure, mission-oriented novel.
It does get a bit repetitive in the final third, though it does avoid monotony. I suppose both the writing and the subject matter account for that.
The characters, though not the most deeply drawn nonetheless held my interest throughout. I can't say I fell in love with any of them, or that I miss them now that I have finished the book, but in the very least they were entertaining or interesting enough to stick with for the duration. Even the villains, which in this case are THE villains, the Nazis, were drawn with some degree of humanity and depth to them. The stereotypical two dimensional Nazi Monster is avoided, while still leaving absolutely no doubt that we are in fact dealing with the Nazis of history.
On top of all of this, more than once the moral complexities of the actions being taken in order to accomplish the mission and defeat the enemy are examined. If nothing else, Black Cross brings up some fascinating challenges to the reader's sense of what is and is not morally permissible in service to a greater good.
I don't know that I cared for the bookends, wherein the entire story in rather detailed omniscience at times is somehow told by one single man whom was not at all involved in any of the events depicted. You do tend to forget all about this by the time you get into the book, (with the exception of an extraneous jump back into the meta setting of the book...present day Atlanta, half way through the story.) I can't help but think the entire thing may have been more potent without same.
Despite a few silly red herrings, gratuitous, (though not graphic) sex, and a bit of stalling towards weaker suspense near the end, Black Cross is a cut above the usual action/adventure, mission-oriented novel.
4.5 stars, this book was almost perfect. If this period in history grabs you in any way, this book will elevate your understanding and defy your expectations. My only negative is a certain pet peeve about his writing style where dialogue is concerned, but it only caught my attention a few times. Highly recommended .... Enjoy.
adventurous
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Compared to the authors Cornpone Chronicles this book is better but not by much. While the book is historical fiction it would be better classified as a poor soap opera played during WW II.
Part of me really liked this book. Part of me really hated this book, mostly the characters back and forth about all.the.things.
Set in WW2 Germany, commandos are tasked with using a nerve gas on a concentration camp where medical experiments are taking place. While not far from the realm of possibility, this book is fiction.
I listened to this on audiobook and I struggled with some of the accents the narrator used. I also struggled with the grotesqueness of some scenes, but that was a me thing. By the end, I wanted to punch Mark in the face over and over and over for being such a "good guy", even though it all worked out in the end. Mark punching BG Smith was probably the most satisfying thing I've ever read.
Set in WW2 Germany, commandos are tasked with using a nerve gas on a concentration camp where medical experiments are taking place. While not far from the realm of possibility, this book is fiction.
I listened to this on audiobook and I struggled with some of the accents the narrator used. I also struggled with the grotesqueness of some scenes, but that was a me thing. By the end, I wanted to punch Mark in the face over and over and over for being such a "good guy", even though it all worked out in the end. Mark punching BG Smith was probably the most satisfying thing I've ever read.
Holy crap - amazing novel about a secret mission into Nazi Germany in WWII. Highly recommended!
Good, not great. Not shattering the genre stereotypes as the reviews suggested. Not even the best of the two I've read by Iles. But it was a good vacation read