Lost Kin
It’s Germany in 1946. Americans, Russians, refugees, and ex-Nazis try to survive the post-war turmoil. In the middle of this chaos, an American officer gets word that his long-lost brother is alive. There’s a girl, but she disappears in a few pages. Then there’s a body.
That’s three distinct story lines: the brother, the girl, and the body. One is resolved fairly quickly. I won’t reveal which one, but from that resolution come two additional plots and another murder. Finally, a new mission develops that involves all the characters and even the antagonists. The half-solved plots merge until everything proceeds toward a singular, linear goal in the end.
It’s a good story. I only had trouble sometimes keeping up with the characters. At one point, I asked myself, “Who the hell is that?” An author can keep a reader’s attention in two ways. Number one: make it a page turner. This author is master of that, as in, “It turns out that I have a visitor from my past.” Not only that, but the subsequent chapter will usually pick up right there. That’s good. Number two: remind the reader occasionally who the characters are, just in case the reader is not on a five-hour flight from L.A. to Philadelphia with a plane delay. This author does not do that.
The male characters are well developed, but not so much the females. There’s no romance to speak of. However, that’s not the author’s intention, to write a mystery novel or a romance. His is to show what really happened in the opening days of the Cold War. I found myself saying, “God, I hope that didn’t happen.” If you thought the war was over in 1945, you’ll think otherwise. The title font is red. That’s not because it’s the author’s favorite color.
