Set in France during the last decade of WWII, The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel is built around an interesting topic: Eva, a young Jewish woman from Paris, moves to Aurignon while trying to escape to Switzerland, after her father was arrested by the French police and sent in a concentration camp. Eva has a special artistic gift that she will put in the service of the Resistance, becoming an important element of a network forging fake documents to children, mostly orphans. With a new non-Jewish identity they are taken over the border and eventually adopted. Eva took upon herself the mission of saving their real names, by using a Fibonacci sequence. 60 years after the end of the war, someone found the book, which was looted by the Nazis, and Eva, despite the old age, she runs to Berlin, at Zentral- und Landesbibliothek to reunite with the book.
The story unfolds following two different timelines, but unfortunatelly the current times one is completely unuseful, with few references only.
Another aspect that for me looked completely mistaken is Eva´s Jewish identity. It looks so empty and irrelevant that one can hardly can figure her out as Jewish, expect that there is a voice in off which assumes that she should be. Otherwise, there is no significant content to support this, and there are many details of her assumed spiritual/religious biography that simply do not match.
Although the book has some interesting twists, it is mostly predictable and it lacks sometimes that kind of continuous action that keeps the reader engaged and interested.
Despite those shortcomings, The Book of Lost Names is hard to put down, be it for the topic and as it writes about stories of the French Resistance against Nazis which is still not so well documented and often featured in historical fiction. It appeals both to lovers of contemporary historical fiction as well as to young readers that may be inspired to research more about those terrible times.
Rating: 3 stars
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