Review: Historically excellent and suspenseful
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 14, 2014
This historical suspense novel doesn’t quite make it to thriller levels. That being said, it is well-written, with interesting characters right out of the World War. Set in 1964 New York, Insurance investigator Arthur Murray is forced to skip his way between several plot threads, several of which tie him to his military service in the occupying forces of the U.S. Army, searching for war criminals as a member of the OSS.That war is over and past history, but is it? Murder, maneuvering, corrupt cops and the reappearance in Murray’s life of his old boss, contribute to a fine stew. Murray’s father is somehow drawn in and one wonders how Murray is able to operate his independent business with all that’s going on. He seems to have few clients and his secretary, deeply involved with Murray’s father, seems at times, to suck up a lot of the novel’s energy. But these are relatively minor distractions, because Arthur Murray with all the facets of his life on display, has to struggle to understand how and why all the seemingly unrelated elements of this story must come together.In the end, the solution is satisfying, the characters have grown or progressed—or in some cases died—and Art Murray is left to once more contemplate his sins and his circumstances.