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Nov 06, 2016emerge rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
With all the high marks this has received, I guess I'm in the minority. As with many books dealing with the holocaust, descriptions of life in the camps are poignant & terrifying. That is the book's strong point. But the actual story line & characters fare less well. Because of the prologue, you know the ending before the story begins so there is no element of suspense. The main character is given what is basically a suicide mission...retrieve one man from Auschwitz. But you'll have to suspend all disbelief as he is incredibly lucky a dozen times over as the contrivances pile up. Also, with one exception, all Germans are portrayed as evil one dimensional characters. In the end, I would classify it as a literary historical romance. If that's your genre, go for it!