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World Hotels - Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II
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List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $11.53
Your Save: $ 5.42 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: McBooks Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781590131664
ISBN: 1590131665
Label: McBooks Press
Manufacturer: McBooks Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2008-10-01
Publisher: McBooks Press
Studio: McBooks Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Painting a vivid and terrifying picture of war-torn Europe during World War II, this tale chronicles the lives of Anna, a Krakow University professor, and her husband Jan, a Polish cavalryman. After they are separated and forced to flee occupied Poland, Anna soon finds herself caught up in the Belgian Resistance, while Jan becomes embedded in British Intelligence efforts to contact the Resistance in Poland. He soon realises that he must seize this opportunity to search for his lost wife, Anna.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Accurate and unusual perspective
Comment: I throughly enjoyed this title and unlike several reviewers did not find the characters wooden or cartoonish. If fact I found them to be more realistic than the typical WWII action heroes. In some places I felt as if I was reading a nonfiction narrative rather than work of fiction so accurately are the characters grounded in their time. There is a quiet desperation and underlying numbness to them which I feel is typical of the people who lived during the Nazi occupation. Since most of my family lived in Belgium during the War - the local characters ring true in how they behave and think. My father who escaped to London in 1940 but returned as part of the British army in June 1944 also read the book and was enthralled. He felt the author really knew his stuff. I agree with some that the German officer's infatuation might be a bit much but if not for that, Anna would be dead. That storyline had boxed itself in and the only logical outcome would have been the camps or execution.
Yes, sometimes the characters behave blindly but they are caught in currents greater than they are have no inkling early on of the terrible wave coming at them. That is part of what I really liked about this book - the characters reactions felt real, grounded in the time they lived. As the horror progresses, they come to understand more and more what they are facing and their feeling of bewilderment and fear turn to anger and action. No one in the early days (1939) truly understood what was coming - it was incomprehensible. And after it was over, sometimes you did not ask questions about the missing- the answers were too painful to bear.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Cartoon characters
Comment: This "novel of WWII" was very disappointing. While certain street names and locales gave some flavor of the period, the plot was absurd and the characters cartoons. The "good guys" (i.e. allied forces) had "white hats" in the sense that every action was noble and pricipled. The "bad guys" (i.e.NAZIS) were monsters and buffoons besides. True, the NAZIS were evil, but if they were as incompetent as portrayed in this book, the war would have been over in 1939, with a German defeat.
And the efforts of the resistance in Europe, which most experts agree was largely symbolic rather than of real strategic importance, are protrayed as practically winning the war in the ETO.
Rediculous coincidences abound to move the creaky plot forward.
Save your money and read Furst's "Spies of Warsaw" or any of Furst's other fine books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Story
Comment: I enjoyed this novel. The author writes well and his historical background is reasonably accurate. However, I cannot give this a five star. He lacks the deep background accuracy of an Alan Furst.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Overall Good, But Has Major Flaws
Comment: I did enjoy this book overall, as I am a WW II fan and love books relating to that era. I especially liked that the focus was on the Polish and Belgian resistance, two movements which have gotten little attention in movies and literature.
However, while I started out with five stars for this book, it has dwindled to 3 by the time I reached the end. This could have been a fantastic book but unfortunately, the author fell victim to trying to squeeze in too much and to using absurd coincidences and contrivances to wrap up the story.
1) As others have said, there are too many characters and too many small subplots. I could not keep track of the characters, and after a while, the names began to blur. All too frequently, a character would be introduced and then disappear, for no apparent reason.
2) It would have been preferable to focus on either the Belgian or Polish underground, or at least, just one or two activities that were going on. The book skipped from Poland to Belgium to England to France, with an unending array of activities, meetings, and characters. It became repetitive after a while, and towards the end of the book, there were so many "co-stories" going on, I just began to skip pages and then entire sections. The espionage became tedious because it seemed like the same thing was just being retold over and over again, only with an onslaught of yet new names added to the roster.
3) As others have said, a major problem in this book were the main characters Jan and Anna. Both were about as interesting as a slice of Wonder Bread, and not particularly likeable. Jan was completely void of emotion, and for an ordinary cavalry officer, he certainly appeared to have super powers. The man was indestructible. Anna lacked basic common sense and also was blessed with minimal emotions. Throughout the book, people keep referring to Anna as having strength and resourcefulness, but that is never apparent. Rather, it is amazing that she was able to survive.
4) The author resorted to ridiculous coincidences and situations to wrap up the story. Most idiotic was the SS officer's infatuation with Anna. We are told that Anna is an attractive woman at the beginning of the book, but as war drags on, Anna's long hair is cut short, becomes mixed with gray, and her face "very thin." In other words, the woman is aging from the hardships and probably doesn't look so good. But yet, when she is arrested, Anna had been transformed into a gorgeous woman, and the SS officer is totally mesmerized with her beauty, and becomes psychotically attached to her. If this story line wasn't ludicrous in and of itself, Anna gets her freedom when the SS officer's assistant decides to help her and kills several of his own comrades. And he "sees the light" after a five minute soul searching chat with Anna. It was so silly and contrived that it made me wince, and I nearly gave the book two stars because of it. Surely the author could have thought of a more realistic way for her to escape.
5) The character of Irene and her son Justyn was never really explained, or their purpose for even being in the book. It just seemed that the author needed to throw in a Jewish person, being that this was WW II, and the token "child in distress." Irene is introduced as Anna's friend, and it seems that she is the wife of a soldier who serves with Jan. Since Anna has only been married to Jan 2 years at the start of the story, it would seem that she hasn't known Irene very long. But yet, she is fanatically devoted to this woman and her child, for reasons that are completely unexplained. To the point where she would not leave Poland if Irene and Justyn can't come with her. Of course, if Anna stayed, she would be arrested and be deported or executed, and that wouldn't do much for Irene, but nevertheless, Anna will not leave them.
Irene seems more like a 10 year old child, and is completely void of any personality. In fact, Anna acts like both Irene and Justyn are her children that she must protect and care for. What is also bizarre is that Irene appears to have no family or friends other than Anna. She doesn't seem to know anyone in the Jewish community, and is oddly oblivious to what is happening to Jews in her city. Anna also seems to have no friends other than Irene, or relatives other than her father. Jan also appears to have no family--he never seems to wonder if anyone he knows in Krakow or elsewhere in Poland is alive or dead, other than Anna.
Irene's sudden pregnancy is also contrived and stupid, as is her death--which happens when they are escaping, of course. I almost stopped reading at that point, as it was so idiotic. Justyn the orphan (father also dies in battle) serves no purpose in the rest of the story, and adds nothing to it.
6) The ending is again a ridiculous coincidence, of how Jan and Anna meet up again. They've only been separated for 5 years, and somehow the chips fall exactly in place, and here they are together.
It is really a shame that a good editor didn't sit down with the author and tighten up the story and bring the characters to life. And make it less predictable. You could tell what was going to happen in many places almost immediately.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good WWII yarn
Comment: Douglas W. Jacobson has given us WWII addicts a welcome fix with his Night of Flames. In the style of Alan Furst and Rennie Airth we have a carefully researched tale of the fall of Poland in 1939, with a full account of the insane bravery of the Polish cavalry trying to slow down the Wehrmacht, the courage of the Polish resistance and the tenacity of the Polish army in exile. A young Polish cavalry officer and his family move through the story, each playing an iconic role in the action.
The novel lacks the atmospherics and detail of Furst and Airth, the plot is predictable and the characters are not quite three-dimensional. Nevertheless, this is a workmanlike novel by an author with an obvious gift for narrative, a deep knowledge of this period in history and the dedication to devote a lot of time to putting it all on paper. This is a novel that deserves an encore.
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