Adult Fiction--Helen Airy to Nick Arvin
Airy, Helen L. Dougnut Dollies (Sunstone Press, 1996).
A story of two Red Cross directors, and their accomplishments, frustrations, romances, and the tragedies they witnessed and experienced.
Allington, Maynard. The Fox in the Field: A WW II Novel of India (Potomac Books, 1994).
As cataclysmic battles rage across the European continent, followers of Indian militant Subhas Bose fight the British in India—and join its enemy, Japan, to defeat the colonial master. Within that factual context, Allington invents an amoral, half-British gambler whose undercover mission is to uncloak an operation called China Blue in India. He quickly learns that his stiffest opposition will come from a German soldier-scholar and the half-English wife of an Indian millionaire. Together they support Bose's subversive cause. The heady passions of sex and honor inflamed by the thrill of pursuit whirl the story to a worthy conclusion. Retired Air Force colonel Allington writes with grace and verity. The dialog is true, the research seems impeccable, and the flair for local color emphasizes India in all its mystery. (Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress for Library Journal)
Altman, John. A Game of Spies (Jove, 2003).
It is February 1940, and England is desperate to find out when and how Hitler will make his move toward France. Sleeper agent Eva Bernhardt comes into possession of vital information-and makes a run for it. Uncertain whom to trust, whether she is racing to safety or death, Eva is about to take her future into her own hands-and with it, perhaps the future of the entire war.
Altman, John. A Gathering of Spies (Jove, 2001).
In l943, America thought it had rounded up all the German spies on its soil. It was wrong. Now, Germany's greatest weapon-a woman with special talents, both for tradecraft and for death-is headed home with critical information about the still-developing atomic bomb, and the Allies' chief hope for stopping her is a British agent with agendas of his own. Originally recruited into MI5 to pose as a double agent, he's been telling the Germans that he'd do anything to free his wife, a prisoner of a Polish concentration camp. This happens to be true. The question is: How much would he really do to set her free? Where are his loyalties exactly?
Amis, Martin. Time’s Arrow or The Nature of the Offense (Random House, 1993).
Amis attempts here to write a path into and through the inverted morality of the Nazis: how can a writer tell about something that's fundamentally unspeakable? Amis' solution is a deft literary conceit of narrative inversion. He puts two separate consciousnesses into the person of one man, ex-Nazi doctor Tod T. Friendly. One identity wakes at the moment of Friendly's death and runs backwards in time, like a movie played in reverse, (e.g., factory smokestacks scrub the air clean,) unaware of the terrible past he approaches. The "normal" consciousness runs in time's regular direction, fleeing his ignominious history. (Amazon.com)
Anthony, Adam. The Prussian Prince (Inkwater, 2006).
Kurt von Flick grew up on his family’s rural estate in Prussia, where he was expected to follow the family tradition of a military career. However from childhood, young Kurt demonstrated an ability and interest in art. With the encouragement of family friend Hermann Goering, von Flick is eventually allowed to study art at the University of Cologne where he is befriended by Marco Federico, a fellow student from Palermo, Sicily. Following a post-graduate idyll in Paris, both young men answer the call-to-arms of their respective Fatherlands, and von Flick finds himself accompanying the Wehrmacht, as a translator, during the Blitzkrieg into Poland. Goering, by now Hitler’s Reischmarschall, intervenes again and orders von Flick’s transfer to Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, where he is to work on the conservation of stolen art from the Jews. The castle turns out to be a hotbed of treachery, paranoia and cruelty, which becomes even more obvious to von Flick when he is assigned two Jewish slaves as assistants—a brother and a sister—whom he must protect from the evil slave-master, Sgt. Major Teufel.
Anthony, Piers. Volk (Xlibris Corporation, 1998).
Set during World War II, Volk is the story of friendship that transcends politics and war. Lane is an American fighter pilot; Quality, an American pacifist Quaker; and Ernst, a Nazi.
Arieti, Silvano. The Parnas: A Scene from the Holocaust (Paul Dry Books, 2000).
"Arieti's account demonstrates an important principle of emotional dynamics: mental illness may provide in some individuals a constructive focus for noble and selfless actions," said Library Journal's reviewer of this portrait of Giuseppe Pardo, the congregational leader of Jews in Pisa, Italy, in 1944. Despite his position, he suffered from extreme phobias, including an absolute fear of animals, and he rarely strayed outdoors. Arieti, a psychologist, traces the last weeks of Pardo's life prior to his murder by the Reich. Pardo's story, however, is also a psychological treatise on a rare form of mental illness. (Library Journal)
Arvin, Nick. Articles of War (Arrow, 2006).
Arvin, inspired by his grandfathers’ service during World War II (one with American forces, the other with the German Army), captures the horrors of battle in his first novel. Leaving out the epic sweep of standard historical fiction, the author builds his narrative from one young soldier’s experience. Arvin is especially acute in his examination of the psychology of bravery when faced with devastation. His minimalist prose, which captures the panic, horror, carnage, and chaos of war, packs more emotional and descriptive punch than its simplicity would denote. Only the romantic subplot involving Heck and a French girl draws sustained critical fire, especially from The New York Times. But most agree that Articles of War is a timely, self-assured debut. (Bookmarks Magazine)