The Fifth Column

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Gross, Andrew, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Gross, Andrew
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Gross, Andrew	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Gross, Andrew	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Gross, Andrew	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Gross, Andrew	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024

February, 1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. In New York City, twenty-two thousand cheering Nazi supporters pack Madison Square Garden for a raucous, hate-filled rally. In a Hell's Kitchen bar, Charles Mossman is reeling from the loss of his job and the demise of his marriage when a group draped in Nazi flags barges in. Drunk, Charlie takes a swing at one with tragic results and a torrent of unintended consequences follows. Two years later. America is wrestling with whether to enter the growing war. Charles's estranged wife and six-year-old daughter, Emma, now live in a quiet brownstone in the German-speaking New York City neighborhood of Yorkville, where support for Hitler is common. Charles, just out of prison, struggles to put his life back together, while across the hall from his family, a kindly Swiss couple, Trudi and Willi Bauer, have taken a liking to Emma. But Charles begins to suspect that they might not be who they say they are. As the threat of war grows, and fears of a "fifth column"--German spies embedded into everyday life--are everywhere, Charles puts together that the seemingly amiable Bauers may be part of a sinister conspiracy. When Pearl Harbor is attacked and America can no longer sit on the sideline, that conspiracy turns into a deadly threat with Charles the only one who can see it and Emma, an innocent pawn.

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Really Terrible! submitted by GJBarnett2 on December 21, 2019, 9:30pm This is a really terrible book! In the first place, the proof reading and editing failed miserably. At one point a major character has been convicted of Manslaughter in the Third Degree but later it's "Man two." You'd think he'd know. Mention of "... a fiery crash like one of those downed Messerschermitts on the newsreels" in February 1939. WWII didn't break-out the following September. Reference to Destroyer USS Kearny being sunk by a German U-boat in October 1941 while the US was still at peace with Germany. Actually, Kearny was torpedoed but not sunk. A white Pontiac inexplicably becomes a Buick. And it's commented in November 1945 that the War is finally over, "in Europe at least." The Japanese had surrendered in September, so the War was over in Asia, too. For historical fiction, the history is ridiculously inaccurate and easily checkable. Perhaps worst, SPOILER ALERT: A child is kidnapped and threatened with death, a gun held to her head, by people she completely trusts and thinks of as family. Later, having been rescued and the bad guys having gotten their just desserts, the little girl's parents "comfort her" by assuring that those same people "did all love you, though." I'm not at all sure what I'd tell a kid under those circumstances but it sure wouldn't be that people who love her may try to kill her.