The Crooked Cross, by Michael Dean. Book review

Disclaimer: The Crooked Cross is published by Quaestor2000 who have also published my novel Paths of Exile, although I don’t think that has influenced my opinion.

Edition reviewed: Quaestor2000, 2009, ISBN 978-1-906836-13-9. 191 pages.

Set in Munich in 1933, The Crooked Cross tells the story of a disparate group of people attempting to resist Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. Senior figures in the Nazi hierarchy, such as Heydrich, Hess and of course Hitler himself, appear as secondary characters. Two of the main characters, the lawyer Glaser and the police superintendent Forster, are historical figures about whom little detail is known. The other main characters are fictional.

Adolf Hitler has just become Chancellor of Germany, and his National Socialist (Nazi) party is steadily increasing its control over all aspects of life. Disagreement is already becoming dangerous, liable to result in punishment beatings, destruction or appropriation of property, imprisonment without trial, or worse. Gerhard Glaser, a lawyer and Public Prosecutor, views the ever-increasing power of the party with concern. Two years previously his attempt to investigate the death of Hitler’s niece, Geli Raubal, was frustrated by an obvious cover-up, and Glaser believes that Hitler was responsible for her death. His failure to obtain justice in that case still haunts him, and when a Jewish art dealer is murdered and the contents of his safe stolen Glaser finds himself embroiled in another unsavoury political cover-up that reaches to the top of the Nazi hierarchy. As his attempts to investigate get him into deeper and deeper trouble, Glaser comes into contact with a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Now he is faced with a terrible choice – accept that the rule of law no longer runs in Germany, or try to take matters into his own hands….

The Crooked Cross provides an excellent – and disturbing – portrait of a society’s slide into totalitarian rule. As democratic and judicial institutions are systematically undermined, to be replaced by an arbitrary and increasingly brutal autocracy, ordinary people find their lives progressively constrained. Rival political parties are banned. Journalists who ask too many awkward questions are thrown out of a job, exiled or simply disappear. Even art is controlled, with art forms such as Expressionism condemned as “degenerate” or “un-German” and their practitioners persecuted. Individuals or groups (including, but not only, Jews) who meet with the capricious disfavour of the authorities may find their property confiscated and their livelihoods destroyed. The law becomes gradually demoted to a tool of oppression, to be used as suits the whim of the new tyrants, large and small. Having done nothing wrong is no defence.

Against this background, Glaser’s journey takes on a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god poignancy. Glaser is no political fanatic, but a decent and honest man who believes in the rule of law. Many readers may well find themselves wondering how they would have acted in his situation. The choices he is faced with – in particular, whether to risk his family’s safety for his principles – make him a compelling character. Glaser contrasts well with the other members of the conspiracy, such as the committed communist Sepp Kunde and the aristocratic socialites Ello von Hessert and her unstable brother Rudiger. The von Hesserts move in exalted circles (Ello is effectively Hitler’s girlfriend for most of the book), with all the privilege that implies. Whereas for Glaser and his family the potential danger is all too real.

The novel isn’t a thriller as such, but nevertheless the plot manages to maintain a high degree of tension. Rather like The Day of the Jackal, the reader may know the outcome perfectly well, but the characters don’t. While immersed in the world of the novel, I found myself suspending disbelief and hoping that the conspiracy would succeed and events would somehow all turn out differently. It’s a considerable skill in historical fiction to make known events – especially events as well known as Hitler’s career – seem open to possibility, and The Crooked Cross succeeds admirably.

All the plot threads are resolved either by the end of the novel or in the Epilogue, including the solution to the art dealer’s murder and the fates of the central characters. A helpful Historical Note explains the underlying history and the liberties taken, and sets out which characters are fictional and which based on real figures. A map would have been useful, but it’s not difficult to consult a modern atlas to find out where the various towns and cities are.

Thought-provoking novel charting a disturbing period in recent history.


More information on the novel and the historical background on the author’s website.

The Last Raider, by Douglas Reeman. Book review

Hutchinson, 1963. ISBN 009-180-114-1

The Last Raider is set on board a German commerce raider, the Vulkan, in the last year of the First World War. All the major characters are fictional.

In 1918, as the First World War in the trenches of France and Flanders grinds destructively on with no end in sight, the Imperial German Navy decides to resurrect a now little-used form of naval warfare, the commerce raider, in an attempt to disrupt enemy shipping. Disguised as a neutral merchant ship, the Vulkan departs from Kiel dockyard with a scratch crew and her new captain, the famed “Tiger of the Seas” Felix von Steiger. Her mission is to intercept, capture and destroy enemy merchant ships, maintaining her neutral disguise until the victim has been lured within gunnery range and hauling up the German flag only at the moment of attack. It is a strategy perilously close to piracy, and one that will earn the Vulkan and her crew few friends. Alone on the high seas, with no support vessel and no friendly port within a thousand miles, the Vulkan’s dangerous and lonely mission will take a heavy toll on the ship, the crew and most especially the captain.

The commerce raider as described in the novel seems to me to be reminiscent of the Napoleonic system of prize-taking or the sixteenth-century privateers. I had no idea that it was still in use during the First World War. As described in the novel, the convoy system was beginning to come into use, which meant that isolated merchant ships were less common and thus the commerce raider’s task was becoming much more difficult and much more dangerous. At one point a character refers to the Vulkan as “a scavenger”, supplies are a constant problem, and several times the captain expresses dissatisfaction with the mission’s achievements. There is a strong sense that this is the last gasp of a dying breed, and that the commerce raider’s days are drawing to a close – which I guess reflects the novel’s title.

For me, the novel’s strength is its authentic atmosphere. Not only in the details that recreate the claustrophobic misery of life in a crowded warship, but also in a brooding feeling of bleakness and near-despair that reminds me of some of the First World War poets. It manages to convey a sense of the futility of war – particularly this war, which no-one can remember the reason for and which seems as if it can never end – combined with the absolute necessity for the men involved to do their duty. This in turn raises disturbing questions about honour, decency and integrity, which the contrasting characters have to confront in different ways. How does an honourable man keep his self-respect when he is engaged in a sort of state-approved and state-directed piracy? If a passenger ship is about to transmit a radio message that will bring enemy warships to destroy his ship, how can he balance his moral obligations to the civilian sailors and passengers aboard against his obligation to preserve the lives of his own crew?

The characters are clear individuals with their own hopes, fears, ambitions, hang-ups and principles, and the tensions between these contrasting people fill the novel with conflict on many levels. The disruptive presence of a captured British woman, a passenger from a torpedoed ship, serves to heighten the tensions further. The captain, von Steiger, is inevitably the central character, if only because his actions and decisions will determine the fate of all the rest and they know it. But he does not dominate the novel, and many of the secondary characters and the sub-plots associated with them take centre-stage from time to time.

The Vulkan’s journey takes her from the storm-lashed North Atlantic to the sunny Brazilian coast, and provides a wide variety of adventures and naval problems along the way, from an encounter with an iceberg north of Iceland to the practical difficulties of coaling at sea. The combat scenes range from ship battles to hand-to-hand fighting, and are brutal without being excessively graphic. No doubt reflecting its date of publication, I don’t think there’s a single expletive in the book.

The prose is clear and readable throughout. If there was much in the way of nautical jargon I never noticed it, so it must be sufficiently clear that a non-expert can understand what’s going on purely from context. Much of the dialogue seemed rather stilted and this took me a while to get used to – I wonder if it is intended to represent formal German or is just the author’s style?

Unfortunately there is no historical note, so I have no way of knowing how much of the novel is rooted in fact. Which is a little disappointing, because now I am mildly curious as to whether ships like the Vulkan existed, whether they were used by both sides, how important a role they played and whether 1918 was indeed their last gasp (as the novel seems to show) before they were replaced by the submarine warfare famous in World War II.

Action-packed naval adventure with an unusual setting and a splendid atmosphere of realism.

Has anyone else read it?