From Publishers Weekly
Modern history and suspenseful fiction are here brilliantly combined by a master of both. The plot revolves around two brothers, sons of a wealthy Berlin banker and his American wife, whose conflicting destinies are the means by which Deighton (Blitzkrieg, The Ipcress File) tells the story of Germany from 1900 to the end of World War II. Peter Winter, who flies zeppelins in World War I, becomes a staunch anti-Nazi and then a colonel in the American Army; Paul, charming, ambitious and psychologically flawed, becomes a top legal adviser to the Nazi regime. They finally confront each other at Nuremberg. Though Paul is not entirely convincing as a basically "nice" Nazi, who has conscience enough to save his brother's Jewish wife yet gives spurious legal sanction to Hitler's atrocities without a qualm, both he and his brother are handy pegs on which Deighton hangs accurate, exciting and cleverly selected dollops of social, political and front-line military history, while highlighting the tensions between Prussian and Bavarian, Wehrmacht and SS that hastened the nation's rush toward suicide. 100,000 first printing; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Brothers Peter and Paul Winter, separated by World War II, are reunited at the Nuremberg trials. Peter, a U.S. army colonel, is on the staff of prosecuting attorneys; Paul, a former influential Gestapo lawyer, may soon be on trial for his life. Through the Winter brothers, their influential financier father and American-born mother, their friends and colleagues, Deighton gives a recognizably human form to the shape of German history from 1900 through 1945 and makes comprehensible the awful appeal of Nazism to people of different persuasions. The somewhat contrived ending does not diminish the power of this fine novel, which again shows that Deighton's mastery is not limited to the spy story. BOMC alternate. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
