A big bestseller in Britain, this WW II hare-and-hounds drama
probably won't do quite as well here - where the appetite for
British-based war sagas is less than insatiable. Still, if short on
originality, Francis' action is super-efficient - bringing into
wartime collision a slimy agent/informer, a brilliant German/Jewish
scientist, a young English-raised woman, and a British naval
officer. Julie Lescaux's widowed mother is little help when Julie
becomes pregnant by an itinerant womanizer, so Julie's son is born
in the small Breton village where her father's relatives live.
Meanwhile, educated but slightly cracked Paul Vasson begins a
black-market career in Paris, working for the occupying Germans -
but on a short leash. Meanwhile, too, German electronics expert
David Freymann, whose work on radio ranging devices is
shortsightedly swept aside in the reign of terror against Jews, is
sent to Dachau. Then, however, the need for an anti-radar device
becomes imperative - so David is removed to supervise work in a
super secret radar lab; dazed, despairing, weak and ill, he plunges
into the work he loves . . . while still withholding plans for his
new short-wave anti-radar device. Will the paths of these three
people soon cross? Of course. But first, back in Brittany, the
frightened but determined Julie, mother of three-year-old Peter, is
helping the stolid and loyal Bretons in their aid to evacuating
Allied airmen; love blooms for Julie and British officer Richard
Ashley, who's stranded while taking charge of one fleet of
camouflaged patrol boats. And when David escapes from Germany via a
Partisan ring, he'll have both friends and enemies among this knot
of central characters: Vasson is ordered by the Germans to
intercept and destroy the Brittany-to-England convoy and to nab the
fleeing scientist. So, before the stopwatch-race finale, there'll
be nights of signal lights and whispers, sub-and-plane action,
unsavory spy machinations, pounding pursuits, and a wild, hunted
channel crossing in a leaking, compass-less small craft. Francis
brings in her major characters from their far comers to the central
confrontation at a nicely matched pace; there's a firm ground of
research concerning WW II radar devices and the bungling of the
German High Command (with neat top-Nazi cameos). In all: a
no-frills adventure, crisp and competent - with no surprises but no
false moves either. (Kirkus Reviews)
In the chaos of World War II, three people find their lives interwoven in a web of courage, betrayal and love: Julie Lescaux, a young Englishwoman caught up in one of the most dangerous operations of the French resistance; Paul Vasson a Paris pimp and David Freymann, a German scientist.
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