Qb VII (Hardcover)

Until that point, the author Uris treats the reader to a narrative on the life stories of both Cady and Kelno. Thus, the reader is intimate with and likes both characters. The trial is therefore difficult for the reader, for it's not clear if Kelno was or was not the doctor in question until the last pages of the book.

Uris' story line asks questions about the culpability of the non-Jewish prisoners in the camps. Kelno was a political prisoner during time period for which he stands accused. It would be easy to dismiss the ambiguity of the questions, but the trail lawyers won't let the reader off the hook so easily.

The ambiguity rests not on Kelno's guilt or inocence, but the cost of the trail to the Jewish victims of the concentration camps. While readers will be unsure of Kelno's guilt or innocence until the very end, the end of the novel does not resolve whether the trial was worth it for the winner, because it brought so much pain to those who had to testify at the trail. These quesitons are not easily answered, and I wonder if Uris himself could answer them. I doubt it.

Uris is generous to both Cady and Kelno, and both earn our sympathy at points. However, one's view of Uris' generosity grows expediential when one leans the story is a fictionalized account of a real libel trials brought against Uris after he wrote his best best seller, Exodus.

Readers who enjoyed Bernhard Schlink's The Reader will also enjoy this book. Fans of Grisham and Turow might enjoy contrasting the British courtroom to the American one.

Gripping, horrifying and terribly sad, this novel of a legal battle in England brings back in force the horrors of Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" while questioning everyone's humanity in the face of true evil.

Read this book. I recommend it highly.

But is it all as it seems? Interspersed with the well crafted and written story of the lives of these two men we also have the pomp and formality of the British Court System. This in itself makes the book one of the finest legal thrillers I have read.

Ultimately such a story must have an ending. And what an ending! As they say, you read a book to get to the ending and you won't be disappointed. It is a fabulous novel and one I highly recommend.