Book review : Black Fox One

 

Black Fox One
by
Elyse Hoffman
Genre : Fiction


Ava and Jonas are teenage sweethearts and friends. They truly believe Hitler is the right candidate and will do good for Germany. One fine day, Ava and her entire family disappears and no one in the neighbourhood knows what happened to them. Distraught, Jonas joins the SS and while trying to uncover the Black Fox network of gentiles and Jews who help the Jews escape the holocaust, he catches many and send them to their deaths. Jonas believes in the cause as he searches for Ava who feels he lost because of the Jews. He is given the nickname Fox Hunter by Reinhard Heydrich.

Jonas is given a mission - he has to hunt and capture Black Fox One who will be executed when they open the Fox Farm which will house most of the Black Foxes. Will he capture Black Fox One or will he get captured and killed? Will he find Ava finally or will Ava find him?  Read the book to find out.

What I liked about the book is though the Black Fox network didn't exist, Reinhard Heydrich did and he was nicknamed as the "Man with the Iron Heart" by none other than Hitler. Most people know about Goebbels, Himmler and Hitler but don't know much about Reinhard Heydrich or Alfred Rosenberg because their area of operation was Eastern Europe. The author uses these people in her books to shed more light on what actually happened like how a ship filled with Jews were turned away by both USA and Canada and were forced to return to Europe. While the UK took some of them in, the rest died. This happens in most genocide situations worldwide like the Sri Lankan genocide of Tamils in 2009 when a boat full of Tamils escaped but Australian govt.  refused to let them in and most of them died in international waters. All were democratic nations who refused help.

The book is fast paced and shows how normal, decent people can quickly turn against a people following a minority religion in a democratic country when right wing hate filled leaders are elected. The propaganda machine of the right wing makes it such that you are patriotic or anti-national. The quick dehumanizing of the "other" leads to majority of people unleashing violence on a scale that is unimaginable. That this is now happening worldwide across nations makes this book almost contemporary non-fiction.

If you wish to buy the book, go here ➤  Amazon

Book Review : The Vengeance of Samuel Val by Elyse Hoffman

The Vengeance Of Samuel Val
by
Elyse Hoffman
110 Pages, Project 613 Publishing

Khruvina is a tiny, backwater village in Belarus, Soviet Union. Young Samuel Val lives there with his parents and sisters and hopes to become the Rabbi of Khruvina when he grows up. Instead he finds himself the only survivor as his village is burned to the ground by Germans headed by Viktor Naden aka the beast of Belarus, under orders from Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich was described by Hitler as the "Man with the iron heart."  Sam is shot and left for dead but survives and joins the Black Fox underground network which frees Jews and puts them up in safe houses. When Sam is on a mission to bring back a fellow Jew namely Amos, they accidentally end up in a safe house run by Naden's wife and daughter. Will he have his revenge or will he spare them because the German wife and daughter of Naden are helping the  Jews escape?

From Belarus to Germany, Hoffman spins a tale of horror, inhumanity with flickers of humanity and extreme sadness thrown in between. One cannot think it is just a fiction based on the Holocaust of the past as you see this is being repeated again and again in the genocides across the world making you wonder what is wrong  with human nature that fascism is taking such a strong hold on mankind nowadays. Is ignorance or love an excuse to forgive a barbarian? There is a wonderful debate in the story about redemption and repentance.

The writing style is crisp and the pace is fast. This book reminded me of the recent horror in Manipur, India and we do not know yet all of the stories as it is still ongoing and everyone is aware of the ethnic cleansing.  While synagogues and churches have been destroyed, numerous villages have been burnt leaving many homeless and as internal refugees in India. That Hoffman's story is still valid as genocide is still happening in Asia, makes this book all the more important.

If you wish to buy it, go here  Amazon      - available from Sept 1, 2023 but you can pre-order it now.

Where David Threw Stones - book review

 

Where David Threw Stones
by
Elyse Hoffman
Genre : Mixture of Historical fiction, Fantasy and Mystery.

"Sweet kids raised on poison grow into twisted bastards" - Where David Threw Stones


When I picked up the book to read, I thought the novel would be something about a boy named David and the German Goliath - Hitler and Nazis and how they were brought down in WW2. The author Elyse Hoffman proved me wrong as the story begins in 1968 when a kid named David Saidel blames himself for his parents' death even though they are killed by neo-nazis in Munich. The child is sent to Brennenbach to live with his maternal grandfather. David becomes the child who refuses to smile and then you are introduced to fantasy and history as the town reverts back to Hitler's Germany of 1943 at the stroke of midnight and  stays that way before changing over to 1968 during the day.

David is warned not to step out during midnight but he does anyway one day when he loses his grandfather's dog Mozart. What he faces during the hours is part of the mystery and what a mystery it is. So does David learn about himself and does the curse on Brennenbach ever end? Read the book to find out.

The writing style is crisp, the pace is fast and the book is a page turner. This is a fascinating mix of historical fiction, fantasy and mystery, meshed together and told in a riveting, heart wrenching and unique style which I never thought was possible. The author manages to zip through genres with the ease of a magician while keeping the reader glued to the pages.

As I read it, two things struck me about this book. It is very relevant for the world today where hate as an ideology is being spread against some "other" and there is a generation growing up only knowing hate and frankly it scares me as it is becoming the new normal. The second is for the forgotten genocides in other parts of the world like the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka in 2009 when over 300,000 people were killed in a week using cluster bombs and other banned weapons provided by 21 countries which either directly or indirectly participated with the Sri Lankan Army in the genocide irrespective of their ideologies - both sides of the Cold War bloc. Even today people in Lanka are yet to reconcile and the simmering hatred is still justified in the name of a falsified history and superiority provided by militant Buddhist monks and Sinhalese majority that is taught to children and the people stay silent because they fear speaking up or speaking out.

Everyone should read this book - doesn't matter if you are from the west or east, north, south, majority or minority in any part of the world. I hope this book changes the way you think about your own race, religion, language, identity and about "others" and helps you speak up and speak out. Never forget where and to whom you are born is just an accident of birth.

Buy the book on Amazon