Richard Brawer

This review originally appeared on my blog at www.gimmethatbook.com,

SILK LEGACY is two stories in one–a romance and a Capitalist/Socialist struggle pitting brother against brother. The first part of the book goes by smoothly, as we are introduced to the Bressler family. As the years go by the struggles surface, and while I was firmly in Sarah’s corner (as she struggles against the mighty thumb of opppression wielded by her husband, Abe), I was not sure who to support regarding the labor wars, Abe or Solomon. Both sides are equally represented, and the author paints a wonderfully accurate picture of working class struggles in burgeoning Paterson, NJ.

This book was written so well, I had to stop to double check the author’s name on the front! It could have easily been composed by Ken Follett or Colleen McCullough. There is history, romance, intrigue, and the setting is authentic. I especially was moved during the suffragette’s parade in Washington, as I read about their high hopes and what actually took place.

It is always interesting to see how an author handles a roman a clef, and Brawer intersperses real and fictional characters seamlessly. The dialogue flows smooothly and there are no awkward transitions that are the hallmark of a less talented author.

The only caveat I have to note is that the plot is taken over by the politics and labor talk, to the exclusion of everything else as the story progresses. It started to seem a bit unbalanced and I found myself becoming less enthralled with the story. Just as things move away from the union struggles, the book comes to an abrupt ending. It was a bit hard for me to see how Solomon would have acted the way he did, given his previous behavior, but there it is. That was the only stutter in an otherwise wonderfully written novel.

There is a great deal of history in these pages—anyone with an interest in how the unions came to be will want to pick this up.… (meer)

This book has a web of corruption from the highest government level on down. An attorney is being set up as the fall guy for a cover-up of an arms deal and I had trouble ranking the bad guys, the army general, the arms company CEO, the CIA turned arms dealer, the Russians, the Chechens, or the uncle who is a mobster. It is action driven with a romance as a back story. The lawyer falls for a prim and proper Quaker girl and they team up to take out the baddies. She has to trade in her values in a hurry as she steps over the gangsters she has shot. It is a quick, fun read for thriller fans. My thanks to the author and LibraryThing for a complimentary copy of this novel.… (meer)