Spying on Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke The Nazis' Secret Code by Marissa Moss

Spying on Spies tells the story of a remarkable woman cryptographer, Elizebeth Smith Friedman.

Elizebeth was the youngest of ten children in a Quaker family. She grew up on a dairy farm in Indiana. An inquisitive person, Elizebeth wanted to attend college, something only one other sister had done. As her father refused to pay for her studies, Elizebeth managed to convince him to lend her the money and charge her interest. She studied languages, literature, history, and philosophy.

In 1915, Elizebeth found that her degree in English did not open opportunities for her. After year as a substitute principal, she decided to try to find work in Chicago. There, a chance meeting at the Newberry Library changed Elizebeth's life forever. She had gone to the library to view Shakespeare's First Folio, which was on display when the librarian questioned Elizebeth about her interest in Shakespeare. Hearing that Elizebeth was looking for a research job, she arranged a meeting that very day with a wealthy Chicago businessman, George Fabyan. This man believed that Shakespeare's plays contained a secret code proving that they were authored by Sir Francis Bacon.

Fabyan boldly insisted that Elizebeth visit his estate and she took up his offer to work on his project. She moved to his estate, called Riverside, where he lived with his wife and the other researchers. There she met the only person near to her in age, a young man named William Friedman. They soon spent most of their work and free time together.

Elizebeth struggled to believe in the work she was doing for Fabyan. When she and William presented strong evidence against any code existing in the Shakespearean text, both Fabyan and Elizabeth Wells Gallup, the head researcher, refused to believe them.

With the start of World War I, Fabyan saw a need for people to crack the secret codes spies might be using so he invited code experts to meet his code team at Riverbank, The War Department, impressed with Elizebeth and William's abilities, began to use Fabyan's cipher team. Soon Riverbank was receiving envelopes full of coded messages and ciphers. One decoded cipher revealed that Germany was working with Mexico to foment a war with the United States as a distraction from the war in Europe.  This indicated that the United States needed it's own decryption unit and Elizebeth and William became that unit. 

Initially Elizebeth and William did all the code-breaking, solving messages by Hindu groups in the U.S. who were working to target England. India wanted independence from Britain at this time so it made sense that they would try to work against the country that had colonized them. A second Hindu group was also decoded. These groups used specific books for their codes.

Working together so closely resulted in a strong bond of mutual respect between Elizebeth and William despite their very different backgrounds. They married in May of 1917 in Chicago. Because they were so accomplished at their work, the Army wanted them but Fabyan interfered, determined to keep them at Riverbank.  In 1918, William, having learned that the War Department actually wanted him, "...enlisted as an officer in the Radio Intelligence Unit in the U.S. Army Signal Corps."  He passed the physical exam which he had strangely failed earlier, and was sent to France in 1918. Elizebeth was unable to enlist so she was stuck in America until William returned home in  April of 1919. 

Although Elizebeth and William reluctantly returned to Riverbank, eventually they  decided to leave. With the start of Prohibition in 1920, they accepted a job offer from the Army. By 1921, Elizabeth and William had moved out of Riverbank and began working for the U.S. Signal Corps in Washington, D.C. William began to study machines such as the German Enigma, used to encipher messages. Elizebeth took a job as a cryptographer with the U.S. Navy after quitting the Signal Corps but quit after six months and then gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Barbara. In 1926, she had a second child, John.

In 1931, Elizebeth  headed up her own team, at the US Treasury, consisting of three men and two women, had her own office and was the "cryptanalyst-in-charge". Her work involved solving codes and ciphers of criminals and smugglers, especially involved in illicit alcohol sales during Prohibition. She also testified in court.

With the approach of war and the beginning of World War II, Elizebeth began working on Nazi spy messages, especially those in South America. It was during the war that Elizebeth's incredible abilities were to play a significant role in helping the Allies win the war. 

Discussion

Spying On Spies is an engaging and informative account of master cryptologist, Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Her remarkable life spans the first part of the twentieth century including World War I, Prohibition, and World War II. Author Marissa Moss writes in her Author's Note that she wanted to tell Elizebeth's story because her accomplishments were overshadowed by her husband. Most of her work was classified and it's only recently that contributions and accomplishments of Elizebeth Smith Friedman have come to be rightfully acknowledged. 

Moss's account of Elizebeth's life and career as a cryptographer describes the obstacles she faced as a young woman in the first half of the 20th century. Despite her superior abilities, which were repeatedly proven, Elizebeth faced significant obstacles and her abilities were often not recognized. The main obstacles were the  social conventions, expectations and attitudes towards women at this time. Elizebeth's parents believed she belonged in the home as a wife and mother, but her inquisitive mind wanted much more. She showed determination and fortitude in forging ahead with her education, managing to convince her father to lend her money to study at a six percent interest rate!

When she obtained her advanced education, Elizebeth realized her degree did not afford her the same opportunities as it would have for a man. But undaunted, she managed to obtain a position working on codes for a wealthy businessman that was eventually to lead to her life's work. During World War I she faced the obstacles of not being able to enlist in the US Army like her husband could, nor to even vote. At the end of World War I, despite being considered a military cipher expert, Elizebeth was better known as the wife of William Friedman. She was often hired, not on her own merits, but because the US Navy wanted her husband. She had to contend with a press who viewed her in very traditional terms, not as an intelligent woman but as " a pretty young woman in a frilly pink dress." 

Moss demonstrates how Elizebeth's work was so crucial to the United States during World War I and World War II. For example, during World War I, Elizebeth, along with William was able to solve a cipher from the German diplomat, Arthur Zimmerman. Known as the  "Zimmerman Telegram", it revealed that Germany was attempting to incite Mexico to attack the United States and so distract them from the war in Europe. During World War II, Elizabeth decoded a message which revealed Germany's plan to sink the RMS Queen Mary carrying over 8000 soldiers. From the messages, Elizabeth knew the U-boat locations and the ship was able to safely transit the Atlantic Ocean.

Her work was vital to the U.S. understanding what was happening in South America during World War II.  Many Germans had  fled to South America after World War I. There were Nazi spies in Argentina as well as throughout South America. The U.S. wanted to avoid a Nazi takeover of South America. After the June 4, 1943 coup in Argentina, in August of that year Elizebeth was able to decipher a message which revealed what Germany and Argentina were planning or South America: " a block of South American countries" that Argentina and Germany would rule. They could then move on to attack North America. 

Because her and William's work was so top secret, their contributions have remained hidden for decades. It is only recently with the release of some of the material taken from from their home and from the George C. Marshall Research Library by the NSA (National Security Association) that  the amazing work and abilities of Elizebeth Smith Friedman has come to light. 

Readers interested in codes and ciphers and in recent works about Enigma and Alan Turing will enjoy Moss' biography on the incredibly gifted Elizebeth Smith Friedman. She solved the "Red" Enigma used by the SS at the same time as Turing and Bletchley Park but did it without the help of a computer, demonstrating her remarkable abilities as a cryptanalyst. 

Moss has included a short Author's Note, a Glossary, a chapter titled What Are Codes? What Are Ciphers? which has copies of the Zimmerman telegram and the unsolved Voynich Manuscript, a very detailed Timeline which includes many black and white photographs of Elizebeth, William and their children, and Notes for sources for each chapter, and an Index. 

Book Details:

Spying On Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke The Nazis' Secret Code by Marissa Moss

New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers    2024

224 pp.

Agent Most Wanted: the Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell

Virginia Hall was born in 1906 to Barbara and Edwin Lee (Ned) Hall, a Baltimore banker who also owned a movie theater. Virginia, known as "Dindy" to her family, was a free spirit who went against the conventions of the 1920s, wearing pants in place of skirts. She loved hunting and riding horses bareback. Virginia was viewed as a natural leader by her classmates.

While her mother wanted Virginia to marry into Baltimore society, her father allowed her the freedom she craved. Despite this, Virginia did become engaged at the age of nineteen but she eventually broke off the engagement and enrolled at Radcliffe College in 1924. Finding this school boring, she switched to Barnard College in Manhattan. 

Virginia was determined to have a career as a diplomat so she convinced her parents to send her oversees to the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques. Paris was exciting for Virginia with its actresses, intellectuals and politicians. 

It was while studying languages, economics and journalism in Vienna, that Virginia met and fell in love with Emil, a young Polish army officer. Because her family objected to this relationship, Virginia broke up with him.

Living in Europe resulted in Virginia learning a number of foreign languages, and becoming informed on European culture and politics. She developed a deep love for France, her "second country" and became concerned over the rise of fascism in Europe. In 1929, she returned to the United States, to study French and economics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She attempted to become a diplomat but her application was rejected. 

After the death of her father in 1931, Virginia obtained a position at the US embassy in Poland, processing mail, diplomatic visas, and coding and decoding telegrams. In 1933, Virginia transferred to Smyrna, Turkey and it was there that she suffered a life-changing injury, shooting herself accidently in her left foot. When gangrene set in, surgeons were forced to amputate her left leg below the knee to save her life. Virginia returned home in June, 1934, endured several more operations, and was given a new wooden prosthetic leg she named "Cuthbert". This period of her life at her family's home, Box Horn Farm was difficult as Virginia had to relearn how to walk. 

She was able to obtain a new post at the US consulate in Venice, Italy, where she continued to impress her superiors with her abilities. At age thirty, Virginia's second attempt to obtain a diplomat position was rejected on the grounds of her being an amputee. Virginia's supporters lobbied President Roosevelt who was told by Secretary of State Cordell Hull that her disability made her unsuitable for a diplomatic position.  Instead, she was orders to leave Venice and given a posting in Tallinn, Estonia where she arrived after getting the needed repairs to her prosthetic leg in Paris. She arrived in Tallin in June 1938 and spent time hunting pheasant and grouse in the forests of Estonia.

In March, 1939,with war on the horizon, she resigned and left for London in September. When Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, Virginia left for London. After being rejected as a volunteer for the Auxiliary Territorial Service because she was a foreigner, Virginia went to Paris and signed up as an ambulance driver for the French Ninth Artillery Regiment in March, 1940. When France was invaded by the Nazis in May 1940, Virginia was determined to help. She helped transport wounded French soldiers to Paris. As an American, Virginia was given more freedom than the French. On June 22, 1940, France surrendered with Philippe Petain, the new French leader signing a treaty that saw the north and west of France occupied by the Germans. The south was free and was governed by Petain from the town of Vichy and became known as Vichy France. Virginia believed the French would eventually fight back to reclaim their country and she wanted to help them. To do that, she knew she needed to get back to London.

In August 1940, in a border town in Spain, Virginia encountered George Bellows, a British secret agent. She told him about her experiences in France and impressed him with her courage and "...her desire to help the French." He gave her the phone number of a contact in London, that of Nicolas Bodington. He was "...a senior officer in the French (F) Section of a brand-new British intelligence service, the Special Operations Executive (SOE)." 

However, Virginia did not contact Bodington, but instead asked for a temporary job at the U.S. embassy in London, while she waited to travel back to the United States. She was given a job as secretary to the embassy's military expert. Virginia soon found herself trapped in London during the nightly bombings by the Germans. It was at this time during the Blitz that she contacted Nicolas Bodington and was invited to dinner.

She met Nicolas and his wife Elizabeth, an American, in January 1941. Nicolas was frustrated by the fact that the British were unsuccessful in placing a single agent into France. Virginia didn't know who Nicolas was nor of his frustration. After the dinner, Nicolas was determined to use Virginia for a mission. America was not yet involved in the war, so Virginia could openly enter France, working as an American journalist.

There were obstacles to Virginia working in the British military: she was an American citizen, women were forbidden from frontline military service as they were not protected by international laws if taken prisoner during a war, and in the SOE there was strong opposition to women serving in the military. Eventually Virginia was taken on by the SOE on April 1, 1941, becoming Agent 3844 and the first liaison officer (Class A). She was not granted a military rank, likely because she would fail the medical exam based on her prosthetic. 

She was sent into Vichy France, her mission described as "Liaison and Intelligence in Vichy France." The SOE wanted to know the state of affairs in France: "could the French people be organized into effective paramilitary networks to resist fascism ..."  After training in coding, guerilla warfare, spreading propaganda, using code names, making invisible inks, and picking locks, Virginia was sent to Vichy. It was September 3, 1941 when she arrived at Petain's headquarters as a correspondent for the New York Post. Virginia's articles about life in Vichy France provided a wealth of information for the SOE who wanted to send more agents. This information allowed new agents to blend into everyday life. While Virginia was tasked with reporting on the situation in France and helping other agents as they arrived, she would accomplish so much more than that - setting up safe houses, recruiting sympathetic helpers, organizing resistance groups, and even rescuing prisoners. 

Discussion

Agent Most Wanted is the story of Virginia Hall, a woman who overcame the barriers of gender and disability to become the first Allied woman secret agent in France, significantly helping the French Resistance during World War II. Author Sonia Purnell undertook extensive research, interviewing Virginia Hall's niece, Lorna Catling and traveling to France, to speak with the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and many others including the son of  Georges Duboudin who was known as agent "Alain".

Virginia Hall was a most extraordinary woman, a heroine of the war and one of the most effective Allied agents. Purnell explores Virginia's early life, her personality and the factors that formed her into the courageous leader she became.  Nicknamed "Dindy" by her family, Virginia strongly resisted what was considered an "acceptable" life for a young woman in the 1930's. She broke an engagement, got herself well educated and was determined to have a career as a diplomat. Her father allowing her the freedom to be herself led to Virginia forging her own path. Eventually, as an Allied secret agent, she would make significant contributions during the war.

She recruited people to support the resistance to the Nazis in France, recruiting people to help fight the Nazis and defend their country. She recruited people who provided safe houses for agents hiding from the Nazis, obtaining weapons, medicine and supplies for the French Resistance. She also educated incoming British agents helping them to blend into the French culture so they wouldn't be caught by the Gestapo. 

Virginia infiltrated the Surete, the Vichy government's counter-espionage force and she orchestrated prison escapes of SOE agents, most notably the spectacular escape of twelve SOE agents called Clan Cameron from the Mauzac prison camp. 

Despite her remarkable abilities and her outstanding record, Virginia struggled at first to be taken seriously by the SOE in London. Many times male agents were taken at their word, over her more experienced opinions. The SOE refused to put Virginia in charge, even though she was the most competent agent in France. Without military rank, her competence could be questioned and her advice ignored. Purnell relates all of this plus explores the personal cost to Virginia, both the physical suffering she had to endure at times to get to safety and the loneliness she experienced. She also suffered from the betrayal of her network in Lyon by Robert Alesch, a Roman Catholic priest and Nazi collaborator and agent for the Abwehr. It was she who had taken Alesch into her confidence, mistakenly trusting him, something that cost her deep regret in the post-war years.

Virginia Hall proved that women could be excellent agents and she paved the way for many other female agents, many of whom lost their lives. Virginia was determined to prove "...that her survival against the odds had been for a purpose." Years earlier in March of 1939, her bland career made her want more. She wondered "How could she break through the constrictions of her life to do something really worthwhile?" There's no doubt that Virginia Hall was able to do something really worthwhile: she played a significant part in helping the French resist the Nazi occupation and she contributed to the Allies victory in Europe.

Purnell tells Virginia's story in short chapters, with black and white photographs of many significant people involved in Virginia's work in France and important people in her life in the post-war period. The author also provides Notes giving sources for the information in each chapter, a Bibliography and an Index. 

Agent Most Wanted is an engaging story about one of the most significant but probably under-acknowledged heroes of the Second World War. It is well-written, well-researched and highly recommended!

Book Details:

Agent Most Wanted: The Never Before Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell
New York: Viking    2022
200 pp.

The Silent Unseen by Amanda McCrina

Sixteen-year-old Maria Kaminska is being held prison in the NKVD headquarters in Lwow, Poland. She has been captured with no identification papers, and a German pistol, a Walther. The Soviets have been in Lwow, only for twenty-four hours and they are still clearing the area of Germans. 

Comrade Colonel F. Volkov, 64th Rifle Division, NKVD questions Maria as to why she is in Lwow. She tells him she was a slave labourer for two and a half years at the Opel automotive plant in Russelsheim, Germany. She escaped during the bombing of the plant by the Americans, travelled by rail to Tarnow and is trying to get back home to Brod in Wolyn Province.

Volkov writes Maria a pass, but advises her to go back to Przemysl and register with the Red Cross to locate her surviving family. Volkov warns Maria that a Red Army pass is a death sentence if she encounters the UPA or the Polish resistance. Maria doesn't know who the UPA are, but there had been Polish resistance in the forest outside Brod in 1939 when the Soviets first invaded.

In Lviv, Poland, seventeen-year-old Kostyantyn (Kostya) Vitaliyovych Lasko has been in a bar drinking vodka, waiting to meet his contact. He is working as a courier for the UPA. He's dressed in a stolen Red Army uniform with papers that say he is Valerik Fialko, Second Battalion, 100th Rifle Division. He doesn't know what his contact looks like as the coded message came to Commander Shukheyvch's headquarters in Volyn, and he's getting nervous having been here so long.

His contact turns out to be Nataliya, a blonde-haired woman who is a UPA mole in the Red Army front. She tells him there's a cache under the bench across the square but she also gives him a coded message for Marko, commander of the L'viv UPA group. 

 

However, instead of first taking the message to Marko, Kostya meets up with his twenty-two-year old cousin, Kyrylo Romaniuk, a squad leader in the UPA. He tells his cousin who the contact was and the location of the cache. But when Kyrylo asks Kostya to decode the message meant for Marco, he angrily refuses, asks to leave the group and threatens to tell Marko that he's intercepting his messages. For this Kyrylo briefly has Kostya locked up but releases him to return to Marko and warns him that if he tells Marko about the messages he will kill Kostya's mother and his sister Lesya.

When Kostya finally arrives at Marco's headquarters in the crypt of a church, he is questioned and beaten as Marco knows he is taking the messages to Kyrylo. Aleksey Solovey offers to take care of Kostya and his cousin Kyrylo, outside of the city. Kostya is handcuffed, his mouth stuffed with a handkerchief and Solovey and Andriy drive him north of Lviv to an isolated farmhouse. There a Polish woman, Mrs. Kijeck tends to Kostya's smashed-in face.

Solovey gives her photographs of the train station where the Red Army is putting the Polish resistance prisoners, in exchange for bags of medical supplies. For Kostya, he obtains a change of clothes, a gun and a map and tell him to avoid the roads.

Meanwhile, Maria manages to reach her village of Brod on the Slonowka River. The river cuts the village into two parts: the western part is Blizszy Brod, the eastern part is Dalszy Brod. Enroute, Maria has encounters four NKVD patrols who allow her to pass with Volkov's pass. They tell her there is no Brod and that she should return to Lwow. When Maria comes to her family's farm, nothing remains but the ancient stock barn where she spends the night.

In the morning, another NKVD patrol arrives, this time with a young peasant boy as a prisoner. From the hayloft, Maria watches as the NKVD lieutenant shoots the boy in the left knee and when he attempts to shoot him again, Maria shoots the lieutenant and four other NKVD soldiers dead. One escapes. As it turns out, Maria has saved Kostya's life.

He tells her the NKVD are hunting UPA and explains to her who the UPA are and that he is former UPA. It is evident he can't travel so the next morning Maria travels into Dalszy Brok seeking help for Kostya. There she encounters the Polish Resistance who disarm her and tell her that in retaliation for the deaths of five NKVD, Dalszy Brod was raided, everyone machine gunned and the homes burned. Maria attempts to explain that she is responsible for the NKVD deaths. It is at this point that she is reunited with her brother Tomek, whom she believed was dead. Tomek tells Maria that he managed to escape to England via France and that he parachuted back into France as a trained special-operations agent for the English. She learns he is what is called "Silent Unseen" whose orders come directly from the war ministry in London.

In the Polish bunker, Tomez and his group drug and interrogate Kostya. Tomez's goal is to force a meeting with Kostya's cousin, Kyrylo also known as Lys, and to attempt to get the UPA to agree to a ceasefire and to work together with the Polish Resistance against the NKVD. This seems very wrong to Maria because the UPA killed their parents. Nevertheless, Tomek believes this is their only chance to rid Poland of the Soviets whom he believes do not just want to defeat the Nazis but occupy the country as well. He tells Maria that he plans to take the message himself to Kyrylo. 

 

However, this plan goes awry when Tomek goes missing. Maria believes that Kostya is the only person who can lead her to his cousin Kyrylo and locate Tomek. But finding Tomek will test their loyalties and draw them deeper into danger.

 

Discussion

 

The Silent Unseen is a well written historical fiction novel that focuses on a small area in eastern Poland near the end of World War II. The war has seen alliances flip as eastern Poland was first invaded by the Soviets (the Germans took the western half of the country) in 1939, then "liberated" by Nazi Germany during Operation Barbarossa and is now being invaded again by the Soviet Red Army as they push the Nazis back. During the German occupation, the Polish Resistance and the Ukrainian nationalists (the UPA) who wanted an independent Ukraine incorporating part of southeastern Poland, fought the Germans and each other. The Silent Unseen is set as the Soviets over-run eastern Poland, hunting down not just Nazi soldiers but both Polish resistance and the UPA. 

 

The title, The Silent Unseen is the name given to special operatives who where Polish soldiers who were parachuted into Poland and who worked to subvert the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Soviets in Poland. With the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Germany and the Soviet Union, the Republic of Poland  government fled into exile in Great Britain, the Polish navy escaped to Britain and thousands of Polish soldiers escaped to France and then to Britain via Hungary or Romania. Some of those soldiers became what were called Cichociemni - a term that meant "the silent unseen." They were volunteers who  simply disappeared overnight from their units in Britain, entering specialized training to become operatives in German-occupied Poland.  They were trained by the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the officers of the Polish Special Unit and usually worked in groups of between two and six men. They were trained as radio operators, sappers, intelligence agents, and were taught survival skills, hand to hand combat, and the use of explosives. Not only were the Cichociemni parachuted into Poland but drops containing much needed supplies for the Polish underground were also made.

In her Author's Note at the back, McCrina indicates that the character Tomek Kaminski is based on the real life Cichociemni, Marian Golebiewski, a Polish soldier who commanded units of the Polish resistance in the Volhynia region. He was willing to work with the Ukrainians against the invading Soviets, sometimes against the wishes of the Polish government in Britain.

McCrina has crafted another exciting story told in alternating chapters by two young people whose families and lives have been utterly destroyed by war. A young Polish woman, Maria Kaminska is one narrator. She had been captured and sent to Germany to work as a slave in a factory. Before this she and her parents were informed that brother Tomek who was a soldier in the Polish army had been killed. When she returns to her village of Brod, she finds her family's farm destroyed and the graves of her parents. 

The second narrator is a young Ukrainian boy, Kostya Lasko, also from Brod. Kostya has been working as a courier for the Ukrainian nationalists but wants out from the UPA after almost being murdered for being discovered to be a "rat". He had been forced by his cousin, the brutal Kyrlyo Romaniuk, to provide access to the coded messages from UPA command. Kostya's papa is already dead, the Germans took his sister Lyudya, but he believes his mother Klara and his sister Lesya have likely been murdered.

Eventually Maria and Kostya's paths cross when Kostya is taken prisoner by the NKVD in Brod and Maria steps in to save his life. However, Maria being Polish and Kostya being Ukrainian means neither trusts the other, reflecting the distrust and conflict between the Ukrainian and Polish peoples in the region. In Brod, the two encounter Maria's brother Tomek, who it turns out is not dead but a special agent, a Cichociemni, or silent unseen. 

A major strength of The Silent Unseen is the author's ability to portray how the two main characters, one Polish, one Ukrainian, view each other, how the war has changed everything. Their relationship is a reflection of what has been happening in Poland over the duration of the war: mutual distrust between the Polish and Ukrainian population. This distrust is so great, that the two groups even have difficulty cooperating in the face of a more serious, mutual enemy - the Soviet Union.

As Tomek sets out on his mission to try to unite the warring UPA and Polish resistance against the Soviets, Maria and Kostya themselves are caught in a web of distrust. An example of this is when Tomek doesn't return from his mission to seek out Kostya's cousin, Kyrlyo. Maria thinks, "He was dead, and the boy knew it. The boy had been working for Marko all along. This whole thing was a trick, an elaborate trick, and Tomek fell for it. I fell for it. We were both going to die for it."

Even though Maria saved Kostya's life he doesn't trust her and the feeling is mutual. For Maria, she considers her relationship "...purely utilitarian. He did this, therefore I did that, he did that, therefore I did this. Kindness --genuine, unthinking selfless kindness -- just left me suspicious." 

When the two set out to find Tomek, Maria takes Kostya along because her brother went to see Kostya's cousin, Kyrlyo. She lies to him, telling him that his mother and sister are being held prisoner and that if he doesn't co-operate they will die. Their mutual distrust plays out numerous times on the journey. When Maria goes to find water and gets lost and is long in returning, Kostya believes the only reason she returned  "...she remembered she needed  him after all -- because he was useful. It was only ever because he was useful. She had saved his life in that barn because he was useful, and she was dragging him along with her now because he was useful."

They are helped on their journey by a farmer Marek and his wife Agata. When Maria sees the food that Agata has packed for them in the musette bag,  this act of kindness after so much cruelty and death catches her off guard. "I hated that it caught me off guard -- people helping because they wanted to, not because they had to or because they were expecting something in return. I hated that I always assumed there was some hidden motive, some angle. I hated that my first instinct was to ask why -- why would somebody do that? Why would she? Why would Marek? Why would Lew?"

Maria also recognizes how war has changed her and her country. When she and Kostya arrive at what used to be Kyrlyo's safe house, they are initially taken in by a neighbour, Inna. When Maria sees a photograph of Inna's husband, Mykhaylo a Ukrainian in a Polish uniform she is stunned. "Mykhaylo and Inna were both Ukrainian names. It was so jarring now - after Blizsy Brod, after Gora - to think of a Ukrainian in Polish uniform. But of course five years ago it wouldn't have been jarring. It was perhaps too simple, even five years ago, to think we were all just Polish by virtue of being from Poland. Even I, relatively privileged and sheltered, could have told you that was too simple. Even then I knew that in some schools and universities Jewish students were made to sit on separate benches in the classrooms and lecture halls; even then I knew that in Wolyn Province ethnic Ukrainians had been forced off their land all through the twenties and thirties to make way for ethnic Poles. But despite that, despite everything, we were all Polish. There were Jews in Polish uniform. There were Ukrainians in Polish uniform. It had taken this war to tear us apart in ways that seemed irreparable."

 

Ironically, Inna whom both Maria and Kostya trust, gives them away to the NKVD, but fortunately it is to double agent Nataliya who likely saves their lives in arranging them to be set free.

In the end, Maria and Kostya begin to learn to trust one another. This budding of trust happens in during the wagon ride on the way to Lwow when Maria cannot bear to be hidden in the dark in the false part of the farmers cart. Kostya holds her hand, providing a measure of comfort to her. 

As the novel builds to its thrilling climax, the arrival of Kostya's badly wounded cousin at the safe house on Marka Street, places Maria in mortal danger as a double agent with the NKVD seeks revenge. Despite his damaged knee, Kostya risks his life helping Tomek save Maria, a risk Maria recognizes and is thankful for. The author leaves her readers with some semblance of hope in the beginnings of trust between two young people.

The Silent Unseen is a novel filled with violence, brutality and murder and is therefore recommended for older teens. While all war is brutal, the Second World War was particularly terrible in Poland which suffered from both the Soviet and Nazi invasions, as well fighting between Polish and Ukrainian nationalists. McCrina does an excellent job of portraying what this meant to the average Polish and Ukrainian family - the loss of parents, the disappearance of loved family members and the complete destruction of family homes and villages.

 

The author has included a List of Military and Paramilitary Forces, a much needed List of Characters and an Author's Note that explains the origins of her novel. A map detailing the setting of the story is also included although the author notes that her villages of Brod and Gora are fictional.

 

A very well-written historical fiction novel about a little known aspect of the war in Eastern Europe.

 

Book Details:

The Silent Unseen by Amanda McCrina
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers    2022
301 pp.

Island of Spies by Sheila Turnage

Best friends twelve-year-old Neb, ten-year-old Rain and twelve-year-old Stick form the Dime Novel Kids, (the Dimes) a detective agency on Hatteras Island, off the coast of North Carolina. Their headquarters is at the top of the abandoned Hatteras Lighthouse. They hope to garner more business and become FBI agents some day but for now their current investigations include Tommy Wilkins who steals anything left outside and Postmistress Agnes Wainwright who they believe is a spy.

Nebuchadnezzar Alfonzo MacKenzie lives with his mother Irma and his father Noah who used to be the keeper of the Hatteras lighthouse but who has been unwell for some time. Neb follows the rules of the Boy Scouts which he consults from the 1918 handbook. Neb has two sisters, Ruth and Naomi.

Rain lives with her mother who has been given the name Miss Jonah because they washed up on the Hatteras during a violent storm. Stick's mother saved Miss Jonah's life by helping her out of the water just as she gave birth to Rain. The whereabouts of Rain's father are unknown. Rain is of mixed race with her father being Black and her mother white and they are not welcome on the Hatteras. Rain and her mother live in a huge wine casket that washed up on the beach. Rain is a budding artist who likes to paint with bold colours.

Stick's full name is Sarah Stickley Lawson, "apprentice scientist and pre-FBI agent" who lives with her  sister, sixteen-year-old Faye who is dating Reed, her mother Ada who is the island healer, and her father who sails along the coast bringing in supplies for the family store, Titus & Son General Store. The store is run by her grandfather Titus, affectionately known as Grand. He is a World War I vet who seems to have a romantic interest in the Postmistress Agnes Wainwright.

The story opens, January 12, 1942 with Tommy's younger brother Otto visiting the Dimes and attempting to extort them to pay him protection money for when the war reaches America. Everyone is nervous because the U.S. is now at war with Japan after they bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. This also means that America is at war with Germany and that as in World War I, U-boats will probably be patrolling the Eastern Atlantic coast. The Dimes refuse Otto's "offer" and instead tell him they are determined to solve the mystery of who is stealing Neb's lunch every day.

Stick's Papa arrives home from his trip along the coast, in his sloop with the red sails, along with his crew, Onslow Banks and a Black man from Pea Island named Richard Oscar. He's been gone three weeks and has brought home an odd assortment of goods much to the consternation of Grand. Stick's father plans to sail immediately the next morning to bring in more supplies before the war really ramps up and rationing begins. However, her Mama refuses to let him go until Sunday.

On Sunday January 18, Stick's Papa leaves to sail down the coast. Stick, Neb and Rain take to staking out the store, while Faye confronts Tommy Wilkins about his brother Otto stealing Neb's lunch and "shaking people down". Just as Reed is about to shoot pool, there is a tremendous boom that cracks the store window and rattles the tins on the shelves. Everyone races to the shore, to see a tanker burning and then explode, sending oil and debris into the ocean. Grand orders the family men to take their people home while the single men patrol the beach. At home Stick's Mama tells them the Germans are hunting boats, and that their lights have to stay off.

In the morning they learn that there were no survivors from the blast and that two more ships were sunk overnight by U-boats. The Dime Novel Kids return to school where their teacher, Miss Pope talks about the war, explaining that the attack on Pearl Harbor has decimated the U.S.'s ability to fight off the German submarines. Both Neb and Stick wonder if there might be Nazi spies in their community. And so they begin staking out various member of their village: Miss Agnes, the Ringers or outsiders who have come to play baseball for the Knnakeet team - Carl Miller and his cousin Ralph and two new travelers, Julia Cornwall and her brother Dirk, artists who are staying in Miss Agnes' cottage.

As the U-boat action ramps up and Stick's father is soon long overdue, the Dime Novel Kids work to figure out who is a spy. Their keen detective work begins eventually brings them into the path of a group of German spies and double-agents and plenty of danger.

Discussion

Island of Spies is an enjoyable novel, set on Hatteras Island, off of North Carolina. The events in the novel cover the span of time from January to August of 1942, as World War II ramps up and U-boats begin to hunt down and destroy American vessels attempting to supply Britain. 

The story is told by twelve-year-old Sarah "Stick" Lawson, a young girl who looks at the world through the lens of science and who frequently draws facts from the encyclopedias she reads. She and her friends have formed their own detective agency based on Dime Novels that they have read and draw tips from. The novel opens with a chapter which mentions that there are "three graves hidden in the heart of Buxton Woods, all three held down with ballast stones painted white.We aren't saying who's resting in those graves and who's not...All we're saying is there's three graves if you know how to find them." What follows are the events that led to those three graves.

The pacing in the first half of the novel is somewhat slow as the author builds her main characters and introduces a slew of new ones who come to the island as strangers. The main characters who form the Dimes are interesting and gradually developed in the first half; from the smart and outspoken Stick who is a "pre-famous scientist", the artistic mixed-race Rain who in the end learns the real names of her parents. to quiet, intelligent Neb who lives in the Hatteras Lighthouse and is trying to deal with the possibility that his father may not live long. Turnage has crafted these characters from people she has encountered in her own life. 

The new characters add to the developing mystery: the "Ringers", Carl and Ralph who are supposedly players brought in by a rival team to play baseball,  and the Artists Julia and her brother Dirk whose family in has been sent to Auschwitz and who are considered by the Dimes to be possible German spies. 

Things pick up when the school is destroyed by the blast from a ship that was targeted too close to shore by a German U-boat in March of 1942. With school now out for the year, the Dimes ramp up their detective work, staking out Miss Agnes' "lair". They eventually learn Miss Agnes's true identity and agree to work with her.

The novel's most entertaining point occurs when the Dimes attend the dance at the Oceanside Club at Nag's Head. Turnage's descriptions of disguises and events are enormously funny and delightful. But it is after this point that events become darker and more fast-paced. Stick's Papa is missing at sea, some of the locals begin to turn against Miss Jonah and Rain, and as the Dimes uncover more clues and a secret code, they find themselves in a life-threatening situation that requires all the ingenuity and courage they can muster.

Turnage has crafted a unique historical fiction novel based on the real life threat posed by U-boats to the Eastern seaboard during World War II. This forms the framework for her story of a small community trying to adjust to the changes war brings about while also dealing with old prejudices and expectations. The community struggles with the prejudice towards people of colour when they accuse Miss Jonah, a shipwreck survivor who has a mixed-race child, of being a thief and a spy. In wartime the expectation that women will continue to be at home is challenged by the women of the community who show up at the boys and men only security meeting and when Faye organizes her Security Brigade. It is the women who ultimately save the day in this story.

As she mentions in her informative From The Author To You, Turnage "uses a lot of spy codes, lingo and gizmos - all actually used by spies." making Island of Spies appealing to middle grade readers. This author's note at the back, lays out what is fiction and real history in the novel.

Although Island of Spies takes a bit of time to get going, it's worth the read, filled the mystery of three unknown graves in a woods, twists and turns, loads of spy-craft, quirky characters and a little-known historical context as the framework. A map showing the location of  Hatteras Island and possible shipwrecks from U-boat attacks would have added just that little bit extra!

Book Details:

Island of Spies by Sheila Turnage
New York: Dial Books for Young Readers  
374 pp.

Fallout: Spies, Superbombs and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown by Steve Sheinkin

World War II has ended with the United States and Russia emerging as the two dominant world powers. For the United States, that domination is partly due to the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But now the race is on to dominate in the age of nuclear weapons.

In June, 1953, paper boy Jimmy Bozart was collecting for his paper route. He often was tipped an extra nickel or dime. From the two retired teachers on the top floor of the apartment building, Jimmy was given a quarter and five nickels. But on his way down the stairs, he slipped and the change spilled. Jimmy found the quarter and four of the nickels. The fifth nickel was in two parts: the back and a hollowed out front containing what looked like a tiny piece of film.

Jimmy raced home, wondering if the strange nickel was somehow connected to Soviet spies. The Cold War was intensifying and any bit of information might help. By 1953, the Soviets and United States were locked in a deadly race to build atomic and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

Eventually the nickel came to a classmate's father who was a detective in the New York police and he passed it on to the FBI. They questioned the two teachers and did further investigation into the origins of the nickel but were unable to determine anything. The film was sent to code breakers in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, the man who actually crafted the nickel was living in Brooklyn, not far from Jimmy Bozart's family. That man was Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy who had entered the country via Canada.

It wasn't until August, 1949 that the Soviets successfully tested their first atomic bomb, a weapon they were only able to make after stealing the technology from the United States. In early 1950, President Harry Truman announced the United States was working on a new, more powerful bomb, a hydrogen bomb or H-bomb. Abel was working to steal that technology in the hopes of giving the Soviets an advantage.

But the H-bomb would become a reality very quickly. Edward Teller, a Jewish physicist who fled Germany during the war, came to work at a secret lab called Los Alamos in New Mexico. After working on creating the atomic bomb, Teller along with other scientists wondered if it were possible to make a big bomb by fusing atoms together. It was Teller and Stanislaw Ulam who solved this problem. In November 1952, the United States successfully tested a H-bomb. By 1956, the U.S. would have 3,700 bombs. By 1959, the U.S. had over 12,000 bombs.

In the months after Josef Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev managed to seize control of power in Soviet Russia. He was determined to see the spread of communism throughout the world. In 1955, the Soviets successfully tested their own hydrogen bomb. The nuclear arms race was now on. Like the U.S., the Soviets began stockpiling bombs and building planes and rockets to deliver those bombs.

As both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to develop, test and stockpile nuclear weapons, a series of events over 1960 and 1961 would draw the superpowers into the ultimate nuclear showdown. 

Discussion

With Fallout, Steve Sheinkin continues the story of the arms race and the development of weapons of mass destruction that began during World War II and was told in his book Bomb. In this book, he follows the events that led up to the showdown between the Soviet Union which was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba and the United States, the intended target of those missiles.

The series of events were many and all connected. The first was the capture of U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers who was on a final reconnaissance flight over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. These flights, in the era before satellites, had provided the United States with valuable military intelligence about the Soviet build-up of weapons.

The second was the growing alliance between Khrushchev and the new leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. President Eisenhower considered Castro a growing threat not only to the U.S. but also to other countries in South America. The third was the election of John F. Kennedy as President of the United States in November, 1960. He was the youngest president ever elected to the office and he was relatively inexperienced. Khrushchev saw him as weak and immature but it was Kennedy's reluctance to escalate the conflict that helped avert a war.

The fourth event was the invasion of Cuba by the United States with the intent to remove Fidel Castro. There was evidence the Soviets were sending military supplies to Cuba. After much planning and denial by the U.S., the invasion occurred at Bahia de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs and was a massive failure. 

This was followed by the successful launch by the Soviets of a cosmonaut, Yuri Gagurin, into space - the fifth event. It meant the Soviets now had the potential capability to send a nuclear warhead over the ocean to America. 

Finally, the building of the Berlin wall served to increase tension dramatically in Europe. This was the one place where communism and the free world directly faced off. After World War II, Germany was a country divided: West Germany was democratic while East Germany was a communist dictatorship. Similarly, the capital of Germany, Berlin was also split in two. East Berlin was part of communist East Germany while West Berlin was part of democratic free West Germany. Life in East Germany and East Berlin was difficult as both were oppressive, police states. As a result, people fled from east to west and by 1962, over a thousand a day were leaving. This infuriated Khrushchev who wanted to take over the entire city of Berlin. To stop the drain of people, Walter Ulbricht suggested building a wall between East and West Berlin.

These events were all important catalysts. But it was the fact that the Americans had bases all over Europe including a new operational one in Turkey and that the Soviets were still behind in the nuclear arms race that led Khrushchev to undertake what he later admitted to his son, was "a bluff". "The missiles in Cuba had always been a bluff....The goal was to give the Americans a taste of their own medicine, to make them live with a bit more fear. That would even out the global balance of power. The Soviets could refocus on driving the Americans out of Berlin, and the march to Cold War victory would continue from there."  

It was unbelievable that it was this irresponsible "bluff" which brought the world to the brink of  nuclear war. It seems President Kennedy and Soviet naval Captain Vasili Arkhipov who was the chief of staff for the four Soviet subs near the naval blockage and who had seen the horrors of radiation poisoning from the K-19 nuclear submarine disaster, were the two men who likely prevented nuclear war. Kennedy couldn't imagine starting a nuclear war, despite intense pressure from his military staff and Arkhipov refused to allow the launch of a nuclear missile from one of the subs.

Fallout is well researched, and a fascinating read. The events are told in three parts bookended with a Prologue and an Epilogue. Each part presents black and white photographs of the major players in the events described. Sheinkin does an excellent job of portraying all the moving parts of these events including Russian spies, world leaders, and ordinary citizens including a young paper boy. Despite being well written, this is a book for much older readers and adults. The events are complex and all interconnected.

Sheinkin undertook the research and writing of this book before being interrupted by the pandemic. Nevertheless, he was able to continue his research and talk to Francis Gary Powers Jr. as well as Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev. Dr. Khrushchev was able to provide valuable insights into the events from the Soviet perspective.

Fallout is a must-read for those who want to understand Europe as it exists today and the current events unfolding between Russia and Ukraine.

Book Details:

Fallout: Spies, Superbombs and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown by Steve Sheinkin
New York: Roaring Book Press     2021
341 pp.

Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz

Alan Gratz's novel centers around Projekt 1065 which had begun prior to World War II. Projekt 1065 was a real program undertaken by Germany to build an aircraft that used a turbojet engine, meaning it could fly faster than propeller craft currently in use. But the Germans were not the only ones working on development of a jet engine and they weren't the first either.

In the 1920s British Royal Air Force engineer Frank Whittle designed a turbojet engine. Seven years later, German physicist, Hans von Ohain came up with his design.

Eventually under Projekt 1065, the Germans developed a jet airplane, the Messerschmitt Me 262 was developed. It's first flight using a jet engine was in 1942, but recurring various problems meant it did not see real action until 1944 - too late to really have a significant impact on the outcome of World War II.

In this novel, a young boy is tasked with gaining knowledge of the German plans for construction of a jet plane in the hope of giving the Allies the edge in the war.

Thirteen year old Michael O'Shaunessey lives with his parents Davin and Megan in Berlin, Germany. Michael's father is the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, a post he was given in 1937. Ireland has remained neutral in the war and so maintains an embassy in Berlin. Like all youth in Germany, Michael is a member of the Nazi Youth but he is no Nazi. Instead, he pretends to like the Nazis, pretends to hate Jews and pretends to want them to win the war.

Since 1937 Berlin has changed dramatically. When Michael and his family first arrived Berlin was a city wrapped in the red Nazi flags and with streets filled with happy people and plenty of parades. But in November of 1938 Berlin changed forever. On their way home from viewing a film about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Michael and his family were caught up in Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass". On this infamous night the windows of Jewish businesses were smashed and any Jews in the streets were viciously attacked. Michael's parents reveal to him that they cannot stop to help anyone because they are not only ambassadors but they are also on a mission for the Allies. And that now involves Michael. Berlin is has morphed into a suspicious city, where "people kept their eyes down, whispered if they had to talk, crossed the street to avoid having to give the Hitler salute to someone they knew in case they didn't say 'Heil Hitler!'"

During dinner at the house of a man who is connected to Daimler-Benz, the German automobile company that makes engines for the Nazi military, Michael is tasked with hunting down information about the location of a new engine factory. He finds the information he needs in their host's study and with his photographic memory is able to remember it and pass it along to his parents.

Michael's teacher is Herr Professor Doktor Major Melcher an elderly man with white hair who had fought in the First World War and who used to be a college professor. He's not friendly to the students whom he doesn't really want to teach. Herr Melcher informs them that Berlin is now officially "Jew-free" and secondly that all seventeen-year old boys will be called up to serve in the German army. Unlike his classmates who only know the propaganda that the Nazi regime is feeding them, Michael knows that this is due to the surrender of the German Sixth Army to the Russians at Stalingrad. This means that Michael and the rest Jungvolk will graduate a year earlier to the Hitler Youth.

Not really understanding how badly Germany is doing now in the war, the boys celebrate.  Hitler Youth Leader Horst has the boys burn books but a short, timid boy who doesn't fit in well, Fritz Brendler refuses to burn his. Michael goes to Fritz's defense although both he and Fritz are beaten up. But Michael vows that one day he will "teach Horst how to take a beating." The Junkvolk are called away from their book burning by the SRD -Hitler's Youth's "Patrol Force" to help search for the pilot of a British plane that has been shot down outside Berlin. Michael knows he must find the pilot before the German's do or he will be tortured and killed.

While searching the barn for the downed pilot, Michael reveals to Fritz his overwhelming fear of heights. Fritz tells Michel he won't tell anyone as both boys know that "In Nazi Germany every weakness was punished." Michael manages to locate the pilot who is injured, before the other boys find him. He hides the British airman in the barn but the pilot tells Michael he needs to find the camera he hid in one of the haystacks as it contains important reconnaissance photographs. Later that night Michael and his parents return to the farm and pick up the British pilot who identifies himself as Lieutenant Simon Cohen. He is Jewish.

Messerschmitt ME 262 www.nationalmuseum.af.mil

Although taking Simon back to Berlin is extremely risky, Michael's parents have no other recourse. They hide him in a secret room off of da's study. Simon tells them that he was flying in daylight because the Nazis are "developing some kind of airplane...Works without propellers...Super fast...Caught it on the runway during testing...They call it...Projekt 1065." Unbelievably the next day in class, an exhausted Michael is shown the first page of the blueprints for the secret plane the Nazi's are developing by Fritz.  Fritz tells Michael that this is a new plane with two jet engines that can "go twice as fast as any other airplane in the world!" Fritz reveals that his father works on the design team for the plane. He shows Michael because he tried to save Fritz from being beaten up by the rest of the troop. Michael races home during an air raid and informs his parents and Simon about the blueprint he has just seen.

In order to gain access to all twelve pages of the plans, Michael decides to befriend Fritz. However, Michael's decision to get close to Fritz means he will have to make choices and do things he knows are wrong. It also may mean sacrificing everything he holds dear for the greater cause of helping to defeat the Nazis.

 Discussion 

Projekt 1065 is a well written historical novel set in 1943 Berlin. The son of the Irish diplomat joins the Hitler Youth and is drawn ever deeper into spying when he learns a member of his Jungvolk troop has access to the blueprints of a top secret jet plane the Nazis are working on.

Author Alan Gratz has done a good job of recreating life in World War II Berlin. Set in 1943, the German army has suffered a catastrophic loss on the Eastern Front with the surrender of the German Sixth Army and the loss of almost 300,000 soldiers. Berlin is being constantly bombed by the British at night and the Americans by day. People work for the Nazis because resistance will mean arrest and deportation to a concentration camp. Children are heavily indoctrinated in Nazi ideology about race and the superiority of Germany.  Gratz's focus is on the Nazi indoctrination of the youth. Their lives revolve around the Hitler Youth which takes precedence over both family and school. The are taught that it is honorable to die for the Fuhrer and the Fatherland. Any sign of weakness is seized upon, meaning the children often bully and fight one another.

What happens to the young people of Germany is best demonstrated by the character, Fritz Brendler, a thirteen year old boy who "was so small he looked like he was ten years old..." At first Fritz doesn't want to burn books, he's timid and he doesn't fit in. He is attacked by Horst, the cruel leader of the Hitler Youth and beaten up by the other boys.  Horst spews Nazi doctrine, telling the boys that "Compassion is a weakness,". Horst tells Fritz that someday when he becomes a real Nazi he will turn in his parents, burn books and give his life for Germany. It is a foreshadowing of what's to come for Fritz as he gradually transforms from a young boy into a ruthless member of the junior Gestapo.

Despite the fact that's he's considered weak, Fritz is determined to join the SRD, the Hitler Youth's "Patrol Force" - the junior equivalent of the dreaded Gestapo. At first Michael is doubtful that Fritz believes everything the Nazis have taught him. Fritz tells Michael he wants to join the SRD "For Germany" "For the Fuher" "Everything I do is for the greater good of the Fatherland." Michael doesn't know if Fritz really believes what he is saying. The day of the Hitler Youth tests, Michael passes the different events easily while Fritz struggles but Michael notes "He had a wild look in his eyes, like he refused to fail." The second part of the test involves boxing and Michael is horrified to learn that he must fight Fritz who is no match for the experienced Irish boy. So determined is Fritz to make the SRD, that their brutal match results in Michael being forced to beat Fritz senseless. Both boys make it into the SRD.

At first Fritz still retains some of his innocence. He shows Michael his secret collection of British and American mystery novels and the two boys spend an hour enjoying them. However their first assignment is a raid on the Edelweiss pirates - a resistance group of young Germans. Astonishingly Fritz volunteers to lead the raid. Fritz's eagerness results in SS-Obersturmfuhrer Trumbauer giving him the nickname of Quex, the same nickname given to one of the most famous Hitler Youth ever, Herbert Norkus. He tells Fritz to report to him for assignment to a special team which turns out to be a group of SRD assigned to assassinate a famous scientist. It is this assignment that begins Fritz's complete transformation into an increasingly cruel boy.

Emboldened by his new rank, Fritz tells Michael that Herr Professor Doktor Major Melcher is a "doddering old man who serves no purpose to the war effort," Instead of obeying his teacher, Fritz refuses in a cold showdown that is only ended by an air raid. Michael notes, "Whatever it was Fritz was doing before and after school for the SRD with Max, it was changing him. He was harder now. Colder. Meaner." Fritz returns with the other SRD boys and they beat Melcher before taking him to the Gestapo. Later on, Michael finds Fritz burning his collection of mystery books. When he tries to stop him, Fritz punches him in the face. Michael tells him, "You'd burn something you love just to be on top for once in your life. Even if it means turning your back on who you are." Fritz tells Michael, "This is who I am. I'm going to lead Germany into the future. I'm going to help Hitler rule the world.  Even as he fights Fritz on the roof of the cable car, Michael still struggles to believe that Fritz is who he says he has become.

As Michael is drawn deeper in the workings of the junior Gestapo he must deal with the intense conflict between his actions and his beliefs. Repeatedly he must participate in Nazi cruelty so that he does not blow his cover and he can finish his mission to obtain the remaining pages of the jet plane blueprints. When Herr Professor Doktor Major Melchor is attacked by Fritz and the other SRD boys, Michael knows he has to participate. "I was about to say something, stand up to the SRD bullies, tell the police about Melchor's son, tell them how Fritz and the other boys were wrong. If I said something, I might save Melcher's life. But I would ruin everything else Simon and my parents and I had worked for..." Likewise he has to help man the anti-aircraft guns and the thought that he has shot down a British plane makes him sick. But the greatest conflict Michael must face is the possibility that, in order to be placed on the science team that's being sent to Switzerland to kill a scientist, he must turn in Simon, endangering both the British pilot's life and that of his parents too.

Overall Projekt 1065 is a thrilling, engaging novel that conveys to readers a good sense of what it was like to be a young person in Germany under the Nazis. Michael O'Shaunessey is a classic hero who shows great courage under pressure and who is willing to fight for what is right. Michael also demonstrates maturity in being able to wait until the time is right to get his revenge on Horst instead of acting on impulse. Despite admitting to having a hatred of the English, he forms a strong bond with the British pilot, Simon and is devastated at his cold-blooded murder.

Gratz provides a detailed Author's Note at the back which puts into perspective some of the events that occur in the novel. Projekt 1065 is highly recommended to readers who enjoy historical fiction with a bit of action and adventure.

Book Details:

Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz
New York: Scholastic Press     2016
303 pp.

Hitler's Secret by William Osborne

William Osborne has written an exciting adventure novel with an unlikely but unique premise: two teenage operatives sent into Germany during the height of World War II to retrieve a girl of importance to both the Nazis and the British. Osborne weaves his adventure in the alternate voices of the two spies plus that of Reinhart Heydrich.

In June of 1940, a young German boy escapes from Europe during the Allied evacuation at Dunkirk. Meanwhile in London, a young girl, a refugee from Austria, helps deliver blood to local hospitals. Both are recruited by Admiral MacPherson for a very special mission. 

Rudolf Hess, Deputy Fuhrer of the Third Reich is imprisoned in London Tower. He flew across the English Channel from Germany and parachuted into Scotland and is now a prisoner of the British. 

Hess claims that he has organized a plot to overthrow Hitler. In order to accomplish his plan, a girl from southern Germany must be retrieved and brought to England. MacPherson believes this girl will help the British win the war and he needs two German speaking operatives who are not known to Hitler's security services. MacPherson decides to send in two teens because he believes this will lead to a greater chance of success. He reasons that the Germans will be expecting a man and a woman with a child, not three children.

The boy and girl, whose real names we are not given until the end of the novel, are provided with new identities; Otto and Leni Fischer. Their mission is to parachute into southern Bavaria to rescue a nine-year-old girl named Angelique from a convent. From there Otto and Leni are to take the child to a rendezvous point at Lake Constance on the Swiss border where the admiral will be waiting with a plane to fly them back to England.

Otto and Leni undergo two weeks of intensive training before they are flown in a Mosquito, a small fast plane, and dropped into Bavaria. As expected things do not go as planned, although Leni has no trouble getting Angelique to leave the convent. She is more than willing to escape her lonely prison. But from then on it does not take long before the Germans realize that Angelique has been taken by two teenagers.

When Hitler learns of Hess' defection to Britain he orders Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the Reich Main Security and the General of the SS to go to the Berghoff where Angelique is being kept, to retrieve her and move her to a more secure location. However, when Heydrich arrives he discovers that Angelique is gone. So begins a cat and mouse game between the three young people and the brutal Heydrich, determined to hunt them down at all cost.

Discussion

Although the premise behind the story might be unlikely (Hitler was never believed to have had any children and it's likely that in Germany three children travelling alone would definitely arouse suspicion), Osborne has created an exciting adventure story with heroic, quick-witted teens and a cruel arch-enemy who stops at nothing to try to apprehend them. Osborne doesn't spare his readers anything when it comes to portraying Heydrich as the cruel man he was known to be. He has no problem murdering people who fail him. He's portrayed as cold and calculating and completely obsessed with his quarry.

For the most part, Otto and Leni are realistic characters, at times courageous, at other times fearful, sometimes making bad choices and other times demonstrating cunning and intelligence. However, they do seem too well trained for the two week period they worked with British agents.  Although they have not been told the true identity of Angelique, Otto and Leni eventually figure out who she is and decide that she will likely not be safe with either the British or the Nazis. But Angelique takes matters into her own hands, providing a twist to the end of the novel.

Osborne includes a map outlining Otto and Leni's journey which is helpful to understanding the journey the two are undertaking. There is a short section at the back of the novel which provides brief information on various historical figures. For those interested in learning more about Reinhard Heydrich, the Jewish Virtual Library has a good entry as it also does for Rudolf Hess.

Book Details:
Hitler's Secret by William Osborne
New York: Chicken House    2013
333 pp.

The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini

It is April 1861, and the city of Richmond is in turmoil as a secession convention is being held to determine whether Virginia will follow the southern cotton states and secede from the Union. Forty-three-year-old Elizabeth (Lizzie) Van Lew lives with her mother, her brother John and his wife Mary and their two children Eliza and Anne, in the family's mansion in Richmond, Virginia's fashionable Church Hill neighbourhood. Lizzie has remained unmarried since the death twenty years earlier of her dearest friend and her fiance. Now she and her family watch with trepidation as more and more it appears the people of Richmond are siding with the Confederacy and into full rebellion against the United States.

While the people of Virginia and their representatives debate joining the southern states, the Van Lew family prepares for the wedding of their black servant, Mary Jane to Wilson Brewser.  The wedding serves to highlight the sympathies of each member of the Van Lew household. Lizzie's brother John gives away the bride and a reception is held at the Van Lew mansion but his wife, Mary doesn't attend either. The Van Lew's like many wealthy families in the south, own slaves but this is very much against Lizzie and her mother's wishes.  Before the death of Lizzie and John's father, a codicil was added to his will to prevent Lizzie and her mother from freeing their slaves.

When Virginia decides to secede, Lizzie, John and their mother are distraught. They know this will mean war and that many people will suffer and die. Lizzie suspects it will bring ruin to the south but even worse it will pit families against one another. But Mary is elated and speaks ill of Abraham Lincoln.

In April and May of 1861, the Confederate Congress decides to accept Virginia's offer to make Richmond the capital of the Confederate states. May sees the arrival of Jefferson Davies, (who will become President) and his wife Varina in Richmond; they take up residence in Spotswood while their official residence in the new capital is prepared for them. July sees the first significant land battle of the Civil War - the Union troops led by major general Benjamin F. Butler attack an outpost at Bethel Church in Hampton. Fighting continues around Richmond, at Manassas, as the Union troops attempt to move deeper into Virginia.

Lizzie and her mother anxiously wait throughout the day hoping for a Union victory but learn early the next morning from John, that the Confederates have won this battle - the Battle of Manassas, at a terrible cost to both sides. A thousand Union prisoners are marched into Liggon's Tobacco Factory as all the city jails are now filled. The factory has no beds, kitchens or sanitary facilities for the prisoners, many of whom are terribly wounded. When Lizzie learns of this she immediately sets out to the factory and manages to see Lieutenant Todd who is in charge. Todd refuses Lizzie's request to minister to the Union prisoners or to even briefly visit with the officers. So she takes matters into her own hands and pays a visit to Christopher G. Memminger, secretary of the treasury and also a staunch Christian. Managing to convince Memminger that it is the duty of a Christian to look after prisoners of war, even Yankee prisoners, he gives her a letter of introduction to General Winder who writes Lizzie a pass granting her permission to visit the prison and minister to the Union prisoners. Thus begins Lizzie's work in support of the Union cause.

The very next day Lizzie and her mother arrive at the prison, prepared with food and bandages. The conditions in the prison are more terrible than they imagined, many suffering from infected wounds and lack of water or food. They meet Congressman Ely who was captured as he watched the battle. Lizzie and Ely manage to work out a system whereby she lends him books and he places messages in a unique manner in the books. These messages list the names, ranks and regiments of all the prisoners as well as a letter to President Lincoln outlining conditions at the prison.

Lizzie's activities in support of the Union have not gone unnoticed. She is watched by a spy and an article is written about her and her mother in one of the city's papers, the Examiner. Lizzie's work at the prison also leads to an unexpected blow with John deciding to move his family out of the Van Lew mansion to the other side of the city. Lizzie and her mother are shocked but John insists that this is necessary considering his wife Mary's strong rebel views. He fears for the safety of Lizzie should Mary discover what she is up to.

As the war intensifies, the Confederate Congress attempts to thwart the actions of Union sympathizers within its own territory. The first of these measures is the passing of the Alien Enemies Act which requires "men over the ages of fourteen who were not citizens of the southern states to swear an oath of allegiance to the Confederate government". By the end of August 1861 the Sequestration Act is passed which allows the Confederate government to seize the property of Unionist-supporting civilians.  By September 1861 there are over fourteen hundred men who are suspected Union sympathizers under arrest. There is no doubt that Lizzie's views and actions will be considered hostile and treasonable.

Despite the increasing number of political prisoners in Richmond's jails, Lizzie continues to visit the prisons and to work on behalf of the Union cause. But she also knows that she must protect her mother and so she plans several actions that will throw into doubt her Unionist sympathies; her family hold a dinner and reception in honour of her cousin Jack's regiment, the Richmond Howitzers and they take in Captain Gibbs (who has replaced Todd) and his family for two months while they wait for a house to become available.

On February 22, 1862, Jefferson Davies is inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America. He orders Richmond and the surrounding area to be placed under martial law. Many more suspected Union loyalists are arrested and Lizzie waits in dread to be arrested. This doesn't happen but Lizzie now knows who her fellow loyalists are.

Eventually New Orleans is captured by the North, closing the Mississippi River to the South. In April 1862, John pays a rare visit to Lizzie and his mother and informs them that at one of the many functions he and Mary have attended at the Confederate Executive Mansion, he has learned that Union gunboats are heading up the James River to try to take Richmond. Mary and her mother are so certain that the North will succeed they prepare a room for General McClelland. But McClelland is not successful  and Lizzie and her mother are devastated.

During the battle, Lizzie and her friend Eliza ride out to visit a Union loyalist, Mr. Botts, who has been exiled to a farm nearby. Botts tells Lizzie that she must try to unify Richmond's loyalists so they can all work together to bring about the capture of Richmond and the defeat of the Confederates. He gives Lizzie the names of other loyalists and urges her to contact them but her also tells her that she must be willing to accept the great risk involved. By July 1862 Lizzie begins to set up her network of spies which include many ordinary citizens of Richmond. These people will work to gather intelligence and to get that information past the Confederacy pickets and behind Union lines. The novel follows Lizzie through many terrible events of the war; the Second Battle of Manassas, the brutal battle at Sharpsburg, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the starvation endured by the people of Richmond as food becomes scarce, and the siege and capture of Richmond.  When Richmond finally is captured by the Union troops, Elizabeth Van Lew's contribution to the victory is immediately acknowledged.

Discussion

The Spymistress is a fictional account of the real life Civil War heroine, Elizabeth Van Lew. It is the second novel in Jennifer Chiaverini's historical fiction series about the Civil War. Chiaverini divides her novel into short periods of several months beginning from April 1861 to April 1865. The novel opens set against the drama of secession in Richmond, Virginia.

During the American Civil War women were often recruited as spies to provide intelligence on the opposing side. One such spy was Elizabeth Van Lew. Elizabeth was born on October 12, 1818 in Richmond, Virginia to John Van Lew who had a flourishing hardware business and who also owned several slaves. Elizabeth attended a Quaker school in Philadelphia and it's likely the school was influential in forming her anti-slavery views. Upon her father's death in 1843, Elizabeth and her mother were not able to free their slaves as John Van Lew's will directed they not be freed. Instead they did their best to help them.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Elizabeth was forty-three-years-old and living with her mother in their three-storey mansion in Virginia. They were part of the social elite in Virginian society but did not support either slavery or secession from the Union. Elizabeth and her mother began helping Union soldiers. She brought food, clothing and supplies to Union soldiers imprisoned in Libby Prison in Richmond. This prison was notorious for its harsh conditions. Elizabeth had initially been refused entry but managed to persuade General John H. Winder to allow her and her mother to bring food and medicine to the soldiers.

Elizabeth often helped prisoners escape, developing a plan, hiding them in her own home, or providing information on safe houses. She formed her own spy ring that was so successful in supplying the Union with intelligence that she was recruited by General Benjamin Butler to work for the Union. She used her own cipher to send information back to Butler about Richmond. Her spy network included her own black servant, Mary Elizabeth Bowser. Elizabeth's support and work for the Union cause led to her ostracization by Virginian society, costing her social standing and fortune. She was considered at traitor by her fellow Richmonders. Elizabeth Van Lew died in 1900, destitute and considered an outcast for her work to end slavery.

One of the difficulties in writing historical fiction is that there can be a great deal of focus on historical facts which can detract from the overall reading experience. Historical fiction must be more than just the presentation of facts; the challenge is to weave those facts into the story so that the reader absorbs them without really realizing it. Chiaverini mostly achieves this goal in her novel - many of the facts are central to the story of main character, Elizabeth Van Lew and how she acts. Richmond was a city central to the Union's goal of winning the war as it was the capital of the Confederacy. Lizzie's intelligence efforts helped to bring about the capture of Richmond and end the war and the carnage sooner rather than later. So she must be placed within the complex history of the Civil War. Chiaverini's attention to detail allowed readers who are not intimately familiar with American Civil War history to understand the context of Miss Van Lew's actions and to understand what she experienced.

The author realistically portrays life in Richmond during the war. After the Seven Days Battle the terrible state of Richmond is evident even on Church Hill, where the Van Lew mansion is situated. "In the heat of the day, a sickening, fetid odor permeated the city, so that even high atop Church Hill, the air was so foul that Lizzie and her mother could not sit on the piazza for long before choking, clutching handkerchiefs to their faces, and fleeing back inside."

The character of Elizabeth Van Lewis is developed gradually throughout the novel. At the opening of the war she is a forty-three year old spinster whose life revolves around her two little nieces, Anne and Eliza. It would seem after the death of her fiance years ago, life narrowed somewhat for Miss Van Lew. However, with the coming of the war Lizzie is revealed to be a shrewd, intelligent woman, who is not easily intimidated by others. She is so loyal to the Union and President Lincoln that she is willing to pay the ultimate price - sacrifice her life if necessary. She suffers deeply to see Confederate boys enlisting and reveling in the fact that there will be war. Elizabeth is horrified at the conditions in the Confederate prisons and baffled by the black men who enlist to fight the Union. Chiaverini portrays her as a noble woman who did what she had to, to help the war effort.

The novel is divided into time periods of several months, set in Richmond which became the official capital of the Confederacy. Readers will see how the society in the city gradually changed as the war intensified and how war affected even the most honourable of men such as Colonel Winder. Readers may find the middle of the novel to be somewhat slow, but overall this is a great read for those who enjoy novels about this period in American history.

Book Details:
The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini
New York: Penguin Group           2013
355 pp.