Matt McAvoy Book Review

This is a sequel but you wouldn’t particularly know that, nor is it necessary to; this book pretty much stands alone.  If you like action-packed World War Two stories, this will be right up your street, about a U.S. naval commander who finds himself immersed in a dangerous mission helping the Resistance rescue and smuggle Jews out of Europe.  It is that welcome mixture of just the right amount of swashbuckling with a significant amount of accurate historical detail.  There are some great characters in this tale, and the plight of the Jews at the hands of the monstrous Nazi cleansing machine is made clear vividly in all its depressing detail.  Author John Winn Miller knows his stuff; he is clearly a hugely credible, well-educated, informed and professional person, and that really comes across in his writing; I haven’t read the predecessor to this book, The Hunt For Peggy C, but I am in no doubt that it will be to the same quality and informative detail as Rescue Run.  Miller knows how to craft a story and create genuinely likable and multi-layered characters; even the villain of the piece, Janssen, was a somewhat appealing character, despite his immorality and ruthlessness, and bizarrely I actually found myself hoping, in some way, he would be redeemed.  Furthermore, there is a good deal of appendix material to help you understand perfectly in context, as the author gladly shares his vast knowledge with us.

There is something of an ensemble cast in this one, so at times it can feel a touch jammed and even convoluted at times, so you do need a degree of concentration to follow it; if you start on the back foot you might struggle a touch to play catch up, for a great deal happens, from one setting, location and story arc to the next.  It is long, and at times it feels it, at others gripping and utterly engaging; there is even an epic feel to it on occasion.  It holds little back in its portrayal of the unfathomable nastiness and brutality of the Nazis, Gestapo and indeed simply the traitorous population of many people in Europe, including the Nazis’ very victims and even rare opportunistic treachery perpetrated by some Jews themselves.  It is a real eye-opener of a book, in many ways, and I found myself learning a great deal from it, about the war, European sociology of the time and humanity generally.  Yet, throughout this, it is predominantly an action-adventure.  Overall, though, it is a book and probably a series very much worth a read, whether you want to know about the Nazi death machine in Europe, the plight of refugees and the clandestine workings of the Resistance.  For good measure, there is some exciting naval battle thrown in, too.  Well worth a look.