Hitler's Angel

Rating:
Summary: Good; disturbing, political sci-fi thriller...
Review: Author Rusch has done a fine job of pricking "Id chords" in HITLER'S ANGEL. The book could have been written by Michael Moorcock (BEHOLD THE MAN) or Philip K. Dick (THE MAN in the HIGH CASTLE)both of whom specialized in science fiction stories dealing with alternate or parallel plane "history". The plot concerns possible murder of Adolf Hitler's neice...Angela (Geli)Raubal...by soon-to-be Fuhrer in "blood and water-sports" midst of an incestuous, sado-mascochistic...relationship.

The latter,however,is not the focus of the story. Munich Kriminalpolizei Chief Inspector Fritz Stecher is. He is...in Rusch's quick-fire paced "police procedural"...the man who could have prevented Hitler's horrific assault on humanity by arresting him for murder. The fact this never happened makes the novel's character study of an honest man and former soldier...brutalized by violence of WWI, in a "lost nation" swarming and starving as LOST GENERATION refugees...pursuing Justice an exploration of complex, damning questions rather than reassuring or edifying answers. Cinematic technique of Alfred Hitchcock...where criminal & victims are known, and viewers share terror and voyeuristic complicity(or helplessness)in sin and crime...is evoked with marvelous effectiveness. Rusch employs the reader's OWN KNOWLEGE of history to vicariously "question" him the way secondary character Annie Pohlman(American academic working on a dissertation)questions Stecher. When the Final Question is asked..."Knowing what you, Herr Stecher,knew about Hitler THEN: why didn't you arrest him?"...this truly becomes a fearful QUESTION: Knowing what YOU(the reader)know about Hitler NOW...would you have had courage to arrest him?

It's a scary story with ambience of perhaps the most monstrous man who ever lived--to massacre millions--looming over unexplained, melodramatically colored death that may have been, as Nazis contended, "tragic suicide" not murder. Author Rusch plucks "Id chords". Her thriller thrills because your own knowledge makes you a Character. You hear the tale of HITLER'S ANGEL; you KNOW The Devil who killed her...The rest is silence.

Rating:
Summary: Rewarding ,Though provoking
Review: I found in this novel parellels with today. How a man with panegyric political skills can get friends to cover up crimes. How lying in high places is sometime sanctioned if you agree with his political aims. The novel will entertain you and enlighten you; why even the pope could not have stopped Hitler.

Rating:
Summary: Rewarding ,Though provoking
Review: I have some problems with this book..the ending revelations about Fritz's past, the judgements of Fritz on the American character are not inaccurate, but a bit repetitive, and the "hitler in all of us" idea is dabatable, and will be debated for a long time. But this novel does succeed in several ways, particularly in showing how devasted the world of the German was after WWI, and it depicts well the political labyrinth of german society before Hitler actually took full power in 1933. The story was engrossing and intelligent, the world depicted is complex and interesting. There were many times and ways Hitler could have been stoped by the Germans, the plain and tragic fact was that he was not stopped until 50 million people had died violent deaths as a result of the german people following him. As insane or not as Hitler may have been, he did not effect the Holocaust or unleash history's bloodiest war by himself...millions and millions of Germans willingly followed him into this moral hell, and millions more in Europe and even for a time, America, acquiesed in the horror. We, after all, bombed Dresden weeks before the war's end, killing a hundred thousand civilians when we could have been bombing the rail lines to the camps. One great success of this book is that it does not avoid the moral ambiguities of the time. Worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific thought-provoking novel!!
Review: This is a very thought provoking novel about something that has been losts in the mists of time - and had the potential to change history and save millions of lives. The character Fritz is very well done. He's "real" and "flawed" - but evokes the reader's sympathy. The use of flashbacks to tell the story of his investigation of the death of Hitler's niece works very well. I couldn't put this novel down. At times it was almost lyrical. I am deeply impressed by Krish Rusch's writing. She is a very, very good writer. This novel will spur me to read more of her novels. Do yourself and read Hitler's Angel!!

Rating:
Summary: Terrific thought-provoking novel!!
Review: This is a very thought provoking novel about something that has been losts in the mists of time - and had the potential to change history and save millions of lives. The character Fritz is very well done. He's "real" and "flawed" - but evokes the reader's sympathy. The use of flashbacks to tell the story of his investigation of the death of Hitler's niece works very well. I couldn't put this novel down. At times it was almost lyrical. I am deeply impressed by Krish Rusch's writing. She is a very, very good writer. This novel will spur me to read more of her novels. Do yourself and read Hitler's Angel!!