Katipo Joe series, by Brian Falkner. Junior Fiction
Book One, Blitzkrieg
Book Two, Spycraft.
Brian Falkner’s wonderful wartime
adventure series opens in Berlin in 1938:
Hitler is massing his troops and Germany is preparing for the
Thousand-Year Reich and a pure Aryan race.
Joseph St. George is 12 years old and living in Berlin, the son of
British Diplomats. He has lots of
friends at school and is envious of them because they are all joining the
HitlerJugend, the Hitler Youth – why can’t he?
His parents explain to him very
succinctly why he can’t, especially after Kristallnacht, The Night of the
Broken Glass, when Jews and their property were beaten and smashed: on the surface Deutschland sparkles; behind
the glitter are horrible undercurrents which culminate in a midnight visit to
their home from the Gestapo, who drag Joe’s father off for questioning. Joe finally realises that his idyllic
childhood in Germany is over, especially when he and his mother are forced to
flee to a series of Safe Houses on their way to Switzerland and eventual safety
in Britain – where his mother immediately sends him home to her brother in New
Zealand because he will be safe there.
Outrageous!
Joe
doesn’t believe he can survive without his mother. He still doesn’t know what happened to his
father, and he has no idea what kind of work she does in Whitehall, but he is
determined to get back to her whichever way he can – and after three years he
does, stowing away on a cargo ship, nearly drowning when a U boat torpedo strikes,
but he does make it back to London – just in time for the Blitz, and to find
that his Mother is spying for Churchill.
Brian Falkner keeps up a cracking
pace throughout Book One; his research
is top-notch and he provides a glossary and relevant photos as Joe is
eventually recruited by Whitehall to train as a Junior Spy; he is tall and fair, the perfect Aryan
specimen, and his language skills are exemplary. After the right training he will be sent back
to Berlin – as an assassin: no-one would
ever suspect a tall, handsome Aryan Hitler youth as a murderer of one of their
own.
Spycraft, Book Two, is set in
Bavaria in Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s planning and social centre: once again Joe has been parachuted into
Germany to replace a HitlerJugend lad who mysteriously disappears from the
train that Joe must take to join other young girls and boys who are the cream
of the Hitler Youth. They are to appear
in a movie by acclaimed film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, a propaganda film to show
the German public – and the world – the perfection of German Aryan youth under
the Third Reich and, as with Book One, there is more to Joe’s mission (and more
life-and-death risk) than he could possibly imagine; the suspense and excitement never falters,
and Falkner’s portrayal of all the monsters of history is first-rate. At this stage of the series, Book Two should
be classed as Young Adult as themes and the story change, but the only
criticism I have so far is the lack of Book Three. I need to know what happens! SIX STARS!!
No comments:
Post a Comment