Act of Oblivion, by Robert Harris.

 

 

         The execution of King Charles the First on January 30^th, 1649 was the highlight of the English Civil War between the Royalists (Cavaliers) and Parliamentarians (Roundheads); a great victory for the Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell against Godless, dissolute voluptuaries, all Catholics to a man, slaves to Popish Rome.  England was finally to be a republic, ruled by the English.  For a time.

            Internationally famous author Robert Harris, who has covered just about every world-changing epoch in history, has now turned his attention to the turbulence and tragedy of England after the ascension of Charles 2^nd, and the newly founded Puritan States in the great, unknown and largely undiscovered land of America.  And what is hugely notable about Mr Harris’s recreation is that every character – with the exception of The Manhunter – is authentic;  each person has a recorded existence.  Which is not to say that there wasn’t a manhunter:  as Mr Harris says, there had to be a man who mercilessly tracked down each man responsible for signing Charles the First’s death warrant.  When Royalty was restored anyone who had not fled to Europe or the American Colonies was rounded up, flung in the Tower and hung, drawn and quartered in front of the masses on a well-advertised date.

            And those who were in Europe were tricked into coming out of hiding at the prospect of fictitious meetings with their beloved families, only to find that Richard Nayler, The Manhunter, had tricked them:  they were all going to die by the cruellest death imaginable: ‘to be hanged until the point of unconsciousness, cut down, revived, castrated, disembowelled – the entrails dragged out and burned in front of the living victim – then beheaded and his body cut into four quarters for public display’.

 Nayler is very pleased with his tally of Regicides so far, but two men have continually escaped him by fleeing very speedily on one of the first ships after the punishments were announced, to the Puritan Colony of New England,  on the East Coast of North America.  Despite one fruitless trip to America where his prey, Puritan Colonels Edward Whalley and William Goffe successfully eluded him, Nayler has not forgotten them, for their righteous cruelty resulted in the loss of his loved ones:  he will stop at nothing to see them dead, for as we all know, revenge is a dish best served cold.

Mr Harris is an enormously competent writer, bringing to life beautifully the lives and times of characters great and small, and his descriptions of the great, hospitable, perfect new land and its indigenous occupants at the mercy of its Colonisers brings a lump to one’s throat today, three hundred and sixty years later:  Man, the wrecker.  FIVE STARS.  

     

 

The Light in Hidden Places, by Sharon Cameron.             Young Adults

 

    

      Countless books have been written on the Second World War, and everyone knows of the atrocities committed by thousands in thrall to Hitler and his Third Reich and his attempts to eradicate every Jew from the face of the earth.  It is common knowledge, too, that more than six million people were ‘exterminated’ because of their racial impurity, their inferiority to all right-thinking Aryans.  Gott im Himmel:  Hitler was trying to do the world a favour!

            But some still clung to the irritating Old Ways, not bothered by the fact that Jews followed Moses as Catholics followed Jesus Christ, and such a one is Polish teenager Stefania Podgorska, who starts her first job in the grocery shop of a Jewish family, the Diamants.  Stefania, nicknamed ‘Fusia’ lodges with her sisters who work in Przemysl and she’s thrilled to be away from the farm, and her mother – the freedom is intoxicating!  And her acceptance into the Diamant family is complete;  she is their new little sister – differing religions are easily accommodated, and all is well.  Until the Germans bomb Przemysl and turn up in person days later with all their weaponry.  And cruelty.  All Jews are rounded up, their businesses closed and apartments ‘given’ to Christians.  They are herded into a ghetto by the railway station, there to wait for the trains to take them to ‘work camps’.  It doesn’t take long before people find out what happens at the work camps.  Hitler’s campaign of extermination has begun.

            And Fusia is outraged that her second family is dragged off to the Ghetto – by great chance, she and her little sister Helena are able to stay in the Diamant’s apartment and it isn’t long before she hatches a plan to aid the people she most loves, first with food judiciously bought and bartered, then – most audacious of all, to help some of them to escape from the Ghetto and hide them in new, larger accommodation (it has an attic that will take a false wall) that she has found on the other side of the city – which is wonderful!  God and the Blessed Virgin have heard her prayers!  She thinks. Until she is ordered to share her accommodation with two German nurses from the Military hospital across the road, who are unaware that there are thirteen Jews hidden in the attic above.  Natürlich.

            This true story reads like a thriller.  The suspense is palpable, even though we know the outcome for, with the family’s permission, Ms Cameron has written Fusia’s heartbreaking, magnificent story as a novel, which has given it all the drama that a historical account would lack.  Stefania Podgorska is a true heroine, named with her sister Helena as  Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, and rightly so, embodying perfect goodness at a time when evil ruled.  SIX STARS.    

 

Day’s End, by Garry Disher.

         

    

      Demoted South Australian Detective Paul Hirschhausen has (after three action-packed books) settled satisfactorily into small-town life in Tiverton as the local constable with a huge rural beat;  his patrols around the local farms can take all day – a huge amount of driving, but necessary to establish relationships with those who live in remote areas by choice and/or necessity.  Like rich newcomers Sam and Mia Dryden, who have purchased a huge spread which was the last point of contact between Professor Janne Van Sant and her son Willi, on a backpacking holiday in Australia.  Professor Van Sant has come from Belgium to search for Willi because he has not emailed or phoned;  in fact he has disappeared without trace.  The Dryden property was his last known place of employment:  she needs to know – and see – where he went missing and Hirsch is her escort for the day.

            And all should be well, for the Drydens explain that Willi and his girlfriend just up and left one day as young people do, so sorry, can’t help.  But attached to the gate at the beginning of the long drive is a new notice:

 

Unvaccinated visitors welcome here.  We refuse to enforce unlawful directions from a government that would microchip its people.

 

              It would appear that not only are the Drydens anti-vaxxers, but about as Far Right as it’s possible to be, and as Hirsch investigates further into the nasty underbelly of mis-and-disinformation (even the regional police station has ‘believers’!) he is also appalled to find that various criminal acts attributed to a new family of no-hopers in town have shown that they will stop at nothing – even murder – in their efforts to gain a foothold in a sleepier, safer, less-policed place than Adelaide.  Hirsch’s plate of calamity is full!

            But Hirsch’s problems multiply a hundred-fold with the report of the disappearance of a light plane used by local Pete Aronson for his aerial photography business:  he and his plane haven’t been seen for twenty-four hours.  Something is wrong, and when the downed plane is finally found, crashed and burned-out, Pete’s incinerated remains are found in the tiny cockpit.  An accident?  Maybe – until bullet holes are found:  Pete’s little plane has been shot out of the sky.  What did he see that cost him his life?

            As always, Garry Disher does a wonderfully competent job of keeping up the suspense, and he portrays with his great characters the sorry state that the world Post-Covid is in at the moment – I say at the moment because I hope against hope that previously rational, reasonable, logically-thinking people will eventually stop believing nasty fairy tales and start living without fear again.  I hope.  FIVE STARS.