Jenny Mayhew

It sounded all so promising: a missing child, a remote community in 1920s Germany, a police constable asking uncomfortable questions; so where did it all go wrong? While the author might be good at describing the rural setting, her characterisation unfortunately leaves much to be desired: nothing relating to the characters is subtle, including the character of Elias Frankel, the 'token Jew', who conforms to just about every possible stereotype there is. I couldn't identify with any of the characters, and most of them are irritating and annoying. About one-third through the book the author gives away the identity of the villain, followed shortly after by the motive, thereby eliminating what little tension there was. The rest is drawn out and filled with an unnecessary, unconvincing and distracting love story. I persevered to the end, hoping to get at least a satisfactory explanation for the book's title, but was disappointed. The emergence of fascist ideas, so central to the novel, felt like an add-on and did not convince me, and I believe the author thought it was necessary to spell everything out for her readership, so that they were in no doubt that here were antisemitism and the beginnings of the Nazi propaganda machine; to me, that's sledgehammer characterisation. Disappointing.… (meer)