Blast
A small group of men moves carefully along Hyères beach on the Côte d’Azur in spring 1945. Each pushes a bayonet into the sand and tests for the clink of metal on metal or a nudge from the edge of a hidden object. Each prepares to backtrack suddenly if they find what they are looking for—one of the thousands of mines planted by Germans to stop an Allied invasion. They are deminers led by Fabien, a member of the French Resistance and including Lukas, a German POW, and Vincent, who has assumed a new identity after escaping from a forced labor camp in Germany.
Blast highlights a time that is often overlooked—the days and weeks nearing the end of WWII hostilities that do little to bring peace to the lives of ordinary people. Characters search for a past that can never return, find out things they wish they didn’t know, risk being consumed by their efforts to discover how they and their families were betrayed or how they may get revenge.
Blast is the first novel by Deya, a French screenwriter. The book indeed has the feel of a screenplay. Action shifts quickly from one scene to the next. Dialogue and setting dominate, leaving little room for probing context or emotional ruminations. Though fast-paced, the storyline is nonetheless illuminating, moving, and captivating.
