Saturday, May 14, 2011

Adventures of World War II

Two wartime books, The Angry Hills by Leon Uris (1955) and Storm Warning (1976) by Jack Higgins, have only one thing in common: they are both about WWII. The stories are markedly different but contain high-voltage suspense and adventure from cover to cover. 

The Angry Hills, set in Nazi-occupied Greece, is about a low-key American writer caught between Hitler's invading forces out to kill him and a daring Greek resistance force trying to rescue him. For at stake is the secret information he hides and which he must deliver to allied forces in London, at the cost of his own life. The innocent, albeit desperate, American's hellish journey to freedom forms the crux of this gripping story.     

Jack Higgins is yet to write a novel that does not entertain. Storm Warning does in great measure; in fact, as well as The Eagle Has Landed. Twenty-two men and five nuns embark on a dangerous journey from Brazil to Germany across the vast and turbulent Atlantic, and are shipwrecked. In a narrative reminiscent of stories featuring in Commando comics, friends and foes, British and Germans, come together in a brave and desperate attempt to save the passengers.

Recommended for a lazy Sunday afternoon or as a travel companion.

No comments:

Post a Comment