Churchill's Secret Messenger

Churchill’s Secret Messenger by Alan Hlad is the story of the life and experiences of Rose Teasdale, who begins the book as a typist in Room 60 of Winston Churchill’s underground Cabinet War Rooms in February 1941 on the 159th day of bombing Britain. She is a capable typist and fluent in both English and French, which she speaks like a native because of her French mother’s family. Her brother has been shot down in his Spitfire over the Channel. And one day while she is busy typing, a bomb totals her mother and father’s shop, killing both of them. Churchill sends Rose a personal note sympathizing for her losses.

Some days later, she is brought into Churchill’s private quarters to serve as a substitute interpreter when Churchill is negotiating with General De Gaulle and Commandant Martel. Recognizing her linguistic skills, Churchill has her sent to join the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Hlad inserts the second narrative point of view with a young Jewish man in Paris called Lazare Aron, who lives in restrained circumstances with his parents as the Nazis terrorize the once beautiful, creative city. Because of an accident, Lazare’s hand was crushed, so he wears a wooden prosthetic, which prevented him from being able to join the French army. He turns his hatred of the occupying army by joining forces with the French Resistance. Rose and Lazare meet and fall in love when she is parachuted into France.

They experienced horrible things that made me wish that the war would end so that the pain and suffering would stop. Hlad’s writing is skillful in inflicting that sort of empathetic anguish. There is a great deal of inner dialog, wondering, wishing, and hoping. And there is much that is repeated, which caused me to skip passages I had seen before.

It is a strong, well-written, and well-researched uncomfortable read.

The Red Lotus - Chris Bohjalian (Copy)

Genre: Thrillers & Suspense

Chris Bohjalian published The Red Lotus at the very beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic. After reading this book, you have to question whether or not he had an inside track! I’m glad that I read it at the end of the pandemic. (I hope it’s the end. Don’t want to jinx it - as Bohjalian writes about one of the characters at the end of the book.)

Alexis - an ER doctor - and her boyfriend go off to Vietnam on a bike tour. At the beginning of the book she is waiting in the hotel for him to return from a solo ride taken ostensibly to visit sites that were important to his family. But he never comes back. It was a dangerous road. And he probably shouldn’t have been biking alone. But the story is much more sinister than a simple bike accident.

As Alexis begins to learn more about this man, his lies unravel. Her need to know parallels her emergency room character. She could have just left it alone, but she feels the need to hire a private investigator, to contact police sources in Vietnam, and not trust anyone.

The most positive characters in the story are in Vietnam. There is an overlay of the horrible things that Westerners have inflicted on the Vietnamese people.

I had a problem with her insertion into the mysteries of his character because he told her that his father was wounded in battle. And he wasn’t. Would that really have been enough to catapult someone into a cascade of events that resulted in a great deal of death and dying?

And there was a long filler piece about the private eye’s experience in Vietnam during the war that didn’t move the story forward.

On the other hand Bohjalian’s writing is excellent and worth reading. The story is carefully researched and technically well supported. It is a thriller tale that comes way too close to paralleling reality.

Don’t ignore the Epilogue.