Random Things Tours: Codename Edelweiss by Justin Kerr-Smiley

 

Justin Kerr-Smiley

Codename Edelweiss by Justin Kerr-Smiley is a book built on a ´what if´ premise and therefore the historical fiction aspect is heavily fictionalised itself. 

The general outline of the story follows certain reality lines: Germany lost the war, there was a murderous dictator that killed 6 million Jews, the Catholic Church and the Vatican in general was ambivalent regarding the IIIrd Reich and its followers, some of the Nazi refugiated to Argentina who later bankrolled the military Junta. This relatively general frame is used as a canvas for creatively imagining alternative facts: Eva Braun and her mustachioed husband faked their death and refugiated to Argentina, they even had a son that disappeared which right now is sought after by Mossad and former comrades. Each group has different reasons for it: Mossad wants to eliminate a further heir that could contribute to the raise of a new German danger; the comrades as they actually want to set up a ´new´ Germany.

In-between, there are way too many ´noir´ episodes of confusion and irony. The Jewish journalist Ariel Guzman who revealed the story of the ´lost son´ is killed apparently by mistake and the heir of the couple of despicable memory ends up...in the Golan Heights as a rabbi (converted). 

Indeed, imagination does not have any limits and even myself, as a historian by training, I am not a big fan of historical fictionalised historical novels, I can use some good laughs because, you know, even if reality can get stronger than fiction - hopefully not - one day, there is a blue-and-white team who will do its best to get the monster and this cannot be ignored even by the most fictionalised fictionalisation of histories.

Rating: 3 stars 

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own