The Seventh Cross Book

In Germany, before the War.

Real Germans. Greta and Gerda, Fritz and Franz. Leni and Ella, Hermann and Ernst. Elsa, Liesel, Reinhardt, Alfons. Dr. Lowenstein. A shepherd, a paperhanger, a gardener's apprentice, a seamstress, a wife, friends and former girlfriends.

Tell it subtly. The Heil! Hitlers! The awkward Sunday dinners when one child out of five has joined the SA. The wife who puts down her book, annoyed, when her husband comes home bringing trouble. A hand cut by glass in a fall.

There were concentration camps before, you know, the concentration camps. In Germany, before the War. A state of terror before the worst of it.

And from one concentration camp, seven prisoners escaped. Germans. The Commandant has seven trees chopped, and crosses attached, waiting for the return. Six prisoners are recaptured, or found dead. But one is alive, and running through the fear.

What was it like then? And how will the paperhanger, the gardener, the shepherd, the wife react?

To call this a thriller is to miss the larger point. We root for George Heisel (that seventh cross) of course, but not because of his mission, his utterances, or his flight. He's just one more pawn. Rather it's the atmosphere, a canvas. And individuals. The reader is asked, what would you do?

There's also something going on here with husbands and wives that's, well, before its times.

I can not recommend this highly enough. And, too, the author's Transit, an existential journey which has been gnawing at me since I finished it.