Hart's War

Rating:
Summary: a few good men and a few bad ones, too
Review: At a POW camp for Allied airmen, a prisoner is murdered. Suspicion immediately falls on Lincoln Scott, the only black man in the camp and a target for the dead man's racism. Bomber navigator and law student Tommy Hart is ordered to defend Scott in what is clearly going to be little more than a polite form of lynching. But as Hart begins his investigations, he soon realises that nothing in the camp is what it seems...

This is a superb twist on the legal-thriller genre, the twist being of course that all the protagonists are captives. By confining himself to such a restricted world, Katzenbach must rely on storytelling ability - there's no chance for sex scenes, chase scenes, or various other stock distractions. He succeeds admirably; it's been a while since I read a story with such good pacing and tension. (Conversely, the Stalag environment means that other typical genre things such as characters creeping round in the dead of night to find evidence make a lot more sense).

What lifts Hart's War further above the genre are the characters and the tensions between them: while the basic theme is concerned with racism, little else could be considered black-and-white. Most intriguing are the Germans, who may be The Enemy but aren't necessarily the "bad guys". There are several sides playing off each other, and much of the intrigue (and entertainment) comes from trying to decide who gains from what. Topping it all off are some honest musings on heroism and courage.

Rating:
Summary: A supremely satisfying story of many facets
Review: At first look, the basic plot of HART'S WAR is nothing extraordinary. A black man is framed by a racist populace for the murder of an ostensibly popular white man. And, of course, a novice lawyer, with zero experience in capital murder cases, is assigned as defense counsel for the trial. Ho-hum. The premise is so threadbare that I normally wouldn't have read beyond the jacket. But, hang on a minute ...

In this multi-faceted thriller by John Katzenbach, the place is Stalag Luft 13, a Luftwaffe prison camp for allied flyers shot down in WWII. The accused, Lincoln Scott, is a fictional black pilot of the real-life, famed 332nd Fighter Group (the Tuskegee Airmen), who was downed while heroically defending a crippled B-17 bomber. He's the only Negro prisoner in the camp, and a aloof loner by choice because, you understand, he distrusts whites. The victim, Trader Vic, is a respected bomber pilot from Mississippi that had become the stalag's expert trader in forbidden goods. Lt. Tommy Hart, the navigator of a downed B-25, stands for the defense. Tommy, who left law school to join the Army Air Corps, has essentially finished his law studies while as a POW by reading every legal text he can lay his hands on. The Senior American Officer, Col. MacNamara, and the camp commandant, Luftwaffe Oberst Von Reiter, only want to get Scott's court-martial wrapped up quickly without undue embarrassment to either the Americans or the Germans.

This novel unfolds on many levels. It is, of course, a courtroom drama. But it's also a war drama, a detective drama, a prison drama, and an escape drama. Young Hart is clearly the reluctant, white-hatted good guy, but the moral and ethical issues revealed as he squares off against the rest of the camp remain elusively gray. Who, for instance, is the most evil, black-hatted bad guy? Even the battle-maimed and bitter camp adjutant, Hauptmann Visser, is a man possessing a certain honor, and doing his duty as he perceives it. And, when the identity and motive of the real killer are uncovered, would you, the reader, condemn and convict? This is a question that Tommy himself must ultimately answer as his personality is hammered to maturity in the forge of "growing up".

I liked this book very much, finishing it over a 4-day business trip to DC. I especially liked the irony presented by the 84 hats, an "in-your-face" consequence thrust into Tommy's consciousness, the unforeseen result of a decision he, essentially a non-violent person, had to make to survive.

Rating:
Summary: The Movie and Book are Quite Complementary!
Review: First of all, the book Hart's War, written by John Katzenbach, son of Nicholas Katzenbach, the Attorney General in the Johnson Administration, differs in many ways from the resulting movie. Each stands on its own, and my review of the movie stands.

The book is intriguing and will provide information which will enrich viewing the movie. Details differ in many ways from the screenplay, which in this writer's view, is a good thing. Some characters in the film are amalgamations of persons in the book, but the book is enriched with details that might pass one by in the audio-visual drama. For example, the phrase "goon up" is only heard off-camera, except when spoken by Kommandant Visser, and his pronunciation sounds like "guten Abend" (I believe he is a Romanian actor, and a great cast for the characters of Visser and von Reiter in the book). Another example, the term "kriegie" which POWs use for one another passes by very quickly in the movie, yet is a designation full of layers of meaning (based on the German word "Krieg").

It is not necessary to detail the plot--it is a murder mystery like the movie, but the tempo is quite different and the book itself is a masterpiece of historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Legal Thriller With A POW Twist
Review: Hart's War tells about a particular experience in Tommy Hart's life as a prisoner in a German Prisoner of War camp. He is enlisted by the American Senior Officer in the camp to act as defending attorney for Lincoln Scott even though his qualifications consist of an incomplete law degree to his name. Scott is a fellow prisoner who has been charged with murdering another prisoner, he's an outsider in the camp and is the only black man.

The race issue is a major theme within the book, and Hart and Scott realise that the Germans aren't their only enemies during the trial, with the prisoners threatening to take matters into their own hands.

The fact that the trial takes place within a Prisoner of War camp adds an intriguing dimension to this book. The added complexities involved with living as a prisoner of war while trying to defend a man accused of murder makes this an extremely thought provoking story. Yet as the trial gets underway Hart becomes convinced that there is much more to the case than meets the eye. Evidence is tampered with, the Germans show an extraordinary amount of interest in proceedings and even the American Commanding Officers seem to have their own agendas. Meanwhile, the future continues to look bleak for Lincoln Scott.

I found this to be a gripping book that had me constantly dwelling on what life must have been like for the men who suffered through their captivity during the war. The scenes within the escape tunnel were so vivid that I was actually experiencing mild feelings of claustrophobia just reading about it.

A good courtroom drama combined with a thorough description of life in a POW camp adds up to a very compelling book.

Rating:
Summary: Rated 1st out of 2000+
Review: I have studied English for 5 years and am addicted to the written word. This is one of the best books I have EVER read. There is nothing i can say which will do it justice. It is amazing. It is a must have for every library.

Rating:
Summary: Katzenbach Hits All The Marks
Review: It is rare to find a book as satisfying as HART'S WAR; a book where the author hits all the marks of plot, character, tension, and emotion. HART'S WAR is billed as a thriller on the cover, but it is much more. Yes, it is thrilling -- a legal thriller, a tale of adventure, a murder mystery, and an historical novel, all seamlessly woven together. It is a story of moral and physical courage in the face of prejudice and fear. Perhaps a more apt title would have been "HARTS VICTORY."

If you prefer the vapid, repetitive fiction of John Grisham, then HART'S WAR, with its tension, moral dilemmas, and hard choices, may be something of a challenge. But if you want to enter a world, meticulously crafted, peopled with characters both good and evil, HART'S WAR is a more than satifying read.

I have heard that the book has been option by Hollywood. I hope that it is made into a "film" with fine actors, directed with an attention to detail, and with a screenplay true to the Katzenbach's novel. That is a movie I would look forward to seeing.

Rating:
Summary: Good twist on a murder mystery
Review: One would have to ask oneself upon reading this if it is primarily a POW story which features a murder, or a murder mystery that happens to take place in a POW camp. In this case, I'll take it as primarily a POW story with a twist, and it is that twist that makes it good reading.

First of all, any POW story set in World War II would have to have something different to it. This type of story was done as completely as it possibly could have been with "The Great Escape" many years ago. We know that in a WWII camp there are going to be escape committees, tunnels, and various people providing various roles to complete the project. We also know that while it is the Germans' job to prevent escape, Allied ingenuity is going to somehow give it the old college try.

So having a murder take place among the POWs, probably committed by another POW makes it interesting. For while it would be the Germans that do any firing squads, it is up to the prison population to take care of the trial. One of the most interesting parts of the book are when Germans themselves are called as witnesses, and their observations on American justice are examined.

Added to this interest is the race card. It was true that black airmen fought in WWII amid a lot of bigotry. As it was pointed out, many in charge were so skeptical that it could be done (in those times), that those that passed the training became a crack unit of soldiers. But this being over 50 years ago, there were more then that would not believe this possible, and that adds to the hatred when the person accused of the murder happens to be a black airman.

This is overall a good read, although when all the facts are finally presented, I'm not sure what happened can even be called a murder, given the circumstances of war.

Rating:
Summary: Skip the movie, read the book.
Review: Sometimes movie producers just buy a title. Yeah. I know. It's hard to believe. Or Hart to believe.

So in this case the John Katzenbach story of a UCMJ Military trial for murder in a German prison camp suffers, not so much from the writing, which is excellent, but rather from the movie, which wasn't.

This is a psychological thriller painted on the canvas of the atrocities in a NAZI prison camp. Tommy Hart, recently of a law school venue, finds himself defending a Black Pilot for murder.

The unrestrained sense of racism of the troops against First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott, ironically set in the heart of the Aryan nation, WWII Germany, is a tragic point and counterpoint.

In many respects it is an action courtroom thriller. But Katzenbach's success is that he shows the reader it isn't. It's more than that.

This is a great read for anyone interested in WWII. Like some of James Brady's novels of the Korean War, it weaves facts with the storyline rather seamlessly.

A good read. Certainly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Hart's War
Review: Stallag Luft Thirteen is a prisoner-of-war camp in Bavaria. All its prisoners are flyers - americans, british, canadians -, somehow shot down during the second World War. Some of them have been there for just a few days, some of them for almost two years. The german guards are harsh, but not too much, and the prisoners learn to live as best as they can in the enclosed environment - playing cards, baseball, trading stuff.

Then, one day, a new man comes to the camp - but he's not like the other prisoners, or so they think so: he's a black flyer, named Lincoln Scott. Soon, racial manifestations start to occur. And when the camp's "trader" - a man like Red from "Shawshank redemption" - is murdered, all eyes and fingers turn to accuse Scott. Tommy Hart, the main character of the book, is designated to defend Scott, and together they will disclose truths that were hidden well beneath the camp's earthy surface.

I had previously read another Katzenbach novel - "Just cause", a great thriller. "Hart's war" is a different book. Hart is claustrophobic, and Katzenbach, setting his novel in the confined space between the camp's fences and walls, makes the reader feel a little claustrophobic too. There's no way to escape - the camp has never lost one prisoner. Hart, Scott and their british and canadian friends have to find what really happened in order to save Scott from the death squad.

This blend of legal thriller, historic fiction, action sequences and conspiracy theory makes "Hart's war" really great. The epilogue is corny, but touching.

Grade 9.1/10


Rating:
Summary: A very good book
Review: The book(superior to the movie in every detail) tells the story of the trial of one Licolion Scott an African American pilot shot down over Germany and his rather Kangaroo court. Scott is the sole suspect in the murder of a fellow (racist) prisoner. The odds are stacked against him and the situation does not look good. The story is told from the point of view of Tommy a navigator shot down over Libya. Because he spent half a semester in law school he is appointed to serve as Scott's defense lawyer(he is woefully prepared).

As you read this book you will discover that the plot will thicken into ways you could not possibly imagine on first picking it up. There is plenty of action to keep you interested throughout the book there is even humor in some places and nice plot twist at the end you will not be expecting. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys World War 2 fiction.