"SUNDAY'S CHILD"

By Tom Lewis
VP Publishing, LLC
291 pages
$14.95

For those of you who are approximately my age, perhaps a bit older or perhaps a bit younger, there are probably events that stick out in your mind, happenings that are indelibly inscribed on your memory. For some it may be the day that President Kennedy was shot, or perhaps the Space Shuttle Columbia bursting into flames on re-entry just four short years ago.

Sometimes, however, there are a series of events that engender no singular feelings at the time but later reveal a pattern that ultimately changed a large part of the world.

This is what Tom Lewis' latest novel does. If I had not known better I might have suspected that Mr. Lewis was living as an insider in the faltering government of the Third Reich during the closing months of that regime.

What this author places before us in vivid and convincing detail, is the undeniable downward slide into madness on the part of Adolph Hitler and the undeniable trend to the complete defeat of the once vaunted and admittedly brutal German war machine.

Hitler had made the fatal mistake of attacking Russia. His cold and weary troops are being ground up in the frigid Russian winter while the bloody efforts to capture Stalingrad have reached an expensive and disastrous stale mate.

In the rapidly crumbling German government, Hitler still reigns supreme. Next in line in the government, well it is not really a government, it is more like a royal court, is Martin Bormann.

Anyone wishing to see Hitler must go through Bormann and nearly all the orders from Hitler were forwarded to the remnants of Germany through Bormann.

Bormann is aware of the real nature of events. He knows that Germany is doomed and so embarks on a series of actions that will free him from Hitler's crumbling nation and ensure Bormann a wealthy post-war life in new sur¬roundings.

This novel is a fictional account of how that could have been accomplished. Martin Bormann, a man who lived a life of comparative luxury, even as the nation around him was rapidly deteriorating, abandoned and betrayed a wife and several children, a mistress and several close friends to the rapidly approaching allied armies.

In a series of cunning moves Bormann removed gold ingots from one hiding place and located them where they would be rapidly available.

Then, signing Hitler's name to falsified orders, Bormann accelerates the completion and delivery of an immensely improved submarine.

While there had been frequent surrenders of German troops, Hitler referred to them as deserters, and while Rudolph Hess just flew over the channel to England, Bormann seems to be alone amongthe inner group in planning a solo escape.

Intertwined and sometimes overlapping this primary story, we learn about the massive allied casualties inflicted by the submarine packs that roamed the Atlantic shipping lanes and picked off the convoyed freighters heading toward Europe.

These subs, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse are so successful the submarine captains call their deadly patrols "a turkey shoot."

The deadliest of these German submarine captains is Horst Von Hellenbach. In spite of hating the war and the Nazi regime, his astute skills make him, and his crew, a celebrated and well decorated part of the German war effort. So well known does Von Hellenbach become among the German hierarchy that Hitler relieves him of his patrol duties and sends him off on a public relations junket under Goebbels.

His task is to convince the German people, standing in the rubble in rags, that all is going well with the war.

Sprinkled among the strutting male characters are several women. Edda Winter is Bormann's mistress who dreams of a Hollywood career, although her acting abilities are less than stellar.

Among the other women characters is the lovely Elisabeth Kroll who is having trouble deciding which twin to marry. Will it be the dashing U-Boat captain or the respected surgeon?

Even in a time and place where duplicity and cruelty are a way of running governmental departments, Bormann's use, and casual abuse, of any person who can further his purpose, stands out.

The ending of this well wrought novel is nearly as brutal as it is unexpected.

There are many tales about Bormann's life after the war. Some have this second highest Nazi in Argentina, others in Mexico and one legend has him living out his years in luxury in Florida I think the story that Mr. Lewis has so ably crafted is probably as close to the truth that we will he able to find. Good book, enjoy.

Ken Gruebel's book reviews appear in the Sun Journal every other Sunday.

(This review appeared in the Sun Journal edtion September 9, 2007)