This gripping novel of the brief lives of four young men of different nationalities is chilling – and all-too-credible. John Osman (Retired BBC Foreign Correspondent) ____________ They started as friends, but the war made them enemies As schoolboys, Godfrey Jenkins and Rolf Muller participate in exchange visits. During his visit to Rolf’s school, Godfrey meets Rolf’s Italian cousin, Marco, accompanied by his Greek friend, Yiannis from their homes on the Aegean island of Leros, then under Italian rule. Shocked by the Hitler’s warmongering speech at the Nuremburg rally, Godfrey and Yiannis leave for home, determined to oppose the German jackboot. Yiannis, however, does not reach home. On the way back he joins a Greek merchant ship and subsequently serves his country’s Navy on the famous destroyer ‘Queen Olga’ which proudly continues the fight against the Nazis even after the Greek defeat. After leaving school, Godfrey becomes a soldier. He escapes at Dunkirk and is posted to North Africa where he joins the Long-Range Desert Group. Marco, a German speaker, serves in North Africa as a liaison officer with the Wehrmacht. After the Axis armies are defeated he returns home to man the defences on the heavily fortified island of Leros. Rolf realises his life’s ambition by becoming a Luftwaffe ace in Spain, France, Russia and finally Greece. After the surrender of fascist Italy in 1943, Germany and Britain have designs on the strategic Dodecanese islands in the South Eastern Aegean. Germany’s rapid blitzkrieg, advancing from island to island, culminates in a major confrontation on Leros in which our four protagonists come together one last time.
____________
Mi e molto piaciuto. La storia dei vari personaggi, e il loro intreccio, il modo in cui inspiegabilmente i loro destini si uniscano e tragicamente… Bello!
I loved it. The history of the various characters, and their intertwining, the way in which inexplicably their destinies tragically unite … Beautiful!
