Tag Archives: Anti-Semitism

Thomas Meinecke. Pale Blue. Las Vegas, NV: AmazonCrossing, 2012.

Set in mid-1999, Pale Blue follows the thoughts of Tillman, a young German living temporarily on the Outer Banks. Fascinated by blues music, he traces its evolution through time, musing on iconic figures and significant events from Josephine Baker and World War II to Ronald Reagan and Mariah Carey. This history is interspersed with his own ethnic and sexual self-explorations, which he embarks on with the aid of Vermilion, a local waitress earning her doctorate at Duke studying Hasidic Jews. Tillman also corresponds with an old girlfriend in Germany, Yolanda. As he and Vermilion travel from Ocracoke to Kitty Hawk to Roanoke Island, we journey with them on their voyage of self-discovery and historical inquiry.

Meinecke’s second novel, translated from the German by Daniel Bowles, is a twisting path through time and narration, often switching location and speaker abruptly. Those interested in stream of consciousness writing in particular will enjoy the style of this novel.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Comments Off on Thomas Meinecke. Pale Blue. Las Vegas, NV: AmazonCrossing, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Meinecke, Thomas

A. L. Provost. The Unwilling Spy. New York: Xlibris, 2011.

It is 1943, and the atomic arms race is on. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, physicists labor night and day to develop the first atomic bomb … and nearby German spies observe them. In this fictional account of espionage and murder, German, American, and British agents are embroiled in a battle of wits to uncover scientific secrets first, before the enemy has a chance to gain the advantage.

The tale begins in Santa Fe with Gunter Fleiss, cleverly disguised as all-American Bill Wilson. When he and his attractive co-conspirator, Marla Hawkins, discover the location of a bomb test-site near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, they get word to the Fuhrer as quickly as possible. The Nazi network in America works overtime to set up an attractive, female German spy who will meet a German expert in Camp Lejeune to ferret out the secrets of the bomb. But these observers are not themselves unobserved. The FBI gets wind of their plan, and dispatches their own attractive, female German-American counter-agent to North Carolina.

The Fuhrer decides to send trusted SS Colonel Max Reiner on this dangerous North Carolinian mission, but there is one problem: Colonel Reiner doesn’t know the first thing about atomic physics, and the powers of the beautiful German spy lie in chemistry of another kind. The Fuhrer is forced to send along an expert in atomic physics. When physicist Hans Richter is chosen, he has no desire to go. His father was murdered by an SS officer, and Richter abhors the Nazi Party. Ever since that tragedy, Hans has been biding his time for revenge, and what better revenge than using this opportunity to sabotage the Fuhrer’s plans?

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Comments Off on A. L. Provost. The Unwilling Spy. New York: Xlibris, 2011.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Coast, Historical, Lenoir, Onslow, Provost, A. L., Suspense/Thriller

Laurette MacDuffie. The Stone in the Rain. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1946.

This is a novel about prejudice and opportunism.  The time is immediately prior to World War II.  Luther Perrin is a wealthy man in Somerset (Wilmington).  Perrin’s racist assumptions fit right in with those of his peers, but his active anti-Semitism is a surprise to his family and  friends.  When Perrin decides to develop one of the beaches near Somerset as a private, Christians-only resort, he hires the unscrupulous Cole Rives as an assistant. Rives eggs on Perrin, with disastrous consequences for many people.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Comments Off on Laurette MacDuffie. The Stone in the Rain. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1946.

Filed under 1940-1949, 1946, Coast, MacDuffie, Laurette, New Hanover, Novels Set in Fictional Places

William P. Singley. Bragg. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006.

Numerous colorful characters populate this book, set at Fort Bragg in the 1950s.  The main character, Lt. Sy Margolin, left a comfortable assignment with NATO to become a paratrooper.  The rigors of training are just part of what he has to contend with.  Anti-Semitism is not much below the surface on base, off base life is wild and woolly, and at times the Army seems to value tradition above all else.  Secondary characters–diverse, sly, fun-loving, evil–round out the picture of Fort Bragg in the period between the Korean War and the start of the Vietnam Conflict.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

1 Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Hoke, Singley, William P.

David Schulman. The Past is Never Dead: A Gritz Goldberg Mystery. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 2004.

Gritz Goldberg is a psychiatrist in his hometown of Asheville, N.C., and is working in the same mental hospital where he once spent time as a child. Gritz becomes involved in a decades-old murder case when a local man with a heavy conscience confesses to him that the wrong man was convicted for the 1939 killing of a young woman at the Battery Park Hotel. As Gritz delves into Asheville’s past, he uncovers interesting – – and sometimes disturbing — facts about some of the city’s prominent citizens. Many of Schulman’s characters are based on actual historical figures, including the colorful U.S. Senator Robert Rice Reynolds and the prominent anti-semite William Dudley Pelley. In the course of chasing the down the facts of the case, Gritz learns a great deal about Asheville’s Jewish community in the 1930s.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

Comments Off on David Schulman. The Past is Never Dead: A Gritz Goldberg Mystery. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 2004.

Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Buncombe, Mountains, Mystery, Schulman, David