The Last of the Seven

June 15, 2022
A fact-inspired novel about a German Jewish soldier fighting for the British as a member of two secret, all-Jewish commando units disguised as Nazis. The book begins in the North African desert in the spring of 1943. Having miraculously made it across an endless stretch of sand in the blistering heat on a shattered leg, Bernard Froelich convinces his British captors that despite his Nazi uniform, he is one of them. He is the last surviving member of an infiltration squad comprised of escaped German and Austrian Jews who, having lost their families in the Holocaust, are out for revenge. Boasting a gangrenous wound, Froelich is told his leg will be amputated before the charismatic, cigar-chomping American commander of an understaffed field hospital in an Italian monastery overrules the order and devises a makeshift way to set and heal the leg. Soon enough, Froelich is recovered enough to take charge of another all-Jewish team of fake Nazis whose mission is to parachute into a German village on the isle of Usedom to disrupt an advanced Nazi missile project. A one-time merchant mariner and member of a Special Operations branch of Israeli Military Intelligence, Hartov is at his best capturing the torturous physical tests his protagonist is put to. The desert scenes scorch the imagination; the bombing of a transport ship is horrific. While never less than entertaining, the rest of the novel doesn't rise to that level of intensity, comfortably plugged into the Dirty Dozen formula (Froelich and his fellow commandos are called FJDs, as in "filthy Jewish dozen"). There are extended training sequences, plenty of gallows humor to go around, Rommel makes a low-key appearance, and Froelich falls in love. A little-known story enjoyably told.

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Starred review from July 1, 2022
Hartov's gripping WWII novel is based on the real-life exploits of the Special Interrogation Group (SIG), a commando unit of the British army made up of Jewish volunteers, many of them German nationals who were originally deployed in North Africa. One of those commandos, George Henry Lane, was captured and about to be executed when Field Marshal Rommel spared him. Lane later escaped, the only survivor among the seven-member X Troop of SIG. After opening his novel with a vivid account of Lane's amazing escape, Hartov picks up the story with Lieutenant Bernard Froelich (a fictionalized version of Lane) recovering in an Italian hospital, where he is ordered to join a reconstituted X Troop that's facing a daunting assignment: parachute into a well-fortified island in Germany, where research is being conducted on atomic energy, and rescue a half-Jewish scientist forced to work on the project. Hartov excels at the action sequences (the seemingly impossible rescue mission oozes suspense while effectively combining elements of two classic war movies, The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone), but he's also no slouch at wartime romance: Froelich's liaison with an Italian nurse has moments of Farewell to Arms-like lyricism. Top-notch war fiction.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2022
Hartov's gripping WWII novel is based on the real-life exploits of the Special Interrogation Group (SIG), a commando unit of the British army made up of Jewish volunteers, many of them German nationals who were originally deployed in North Africa. One of those commandos, George Henry Lane, was captured and about to be executed when Field Marshal Rommel spared him. Lane later escaped, the only survivor among the seven-member X Troop of SIG. After opening his novel with a vivid account of Lane's amazing escape, Hartov picks up the story with Lieutenant Bernard Froelich (a fictionalized version of Lane) recovering in an Italian hospital, where he is ordered to join a reconstituted X Troop that's facing a daunting assignment: parachute into a well-fortified island in Germany, where research is being conducted on atomic energy, and rescue a half-Jewish scientist forced to work on the project. Hartov excels at the action sequences (the seemingly impossible rescue mission oozes suspense while effectively combining elements of two classic war movies, The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone), but he's also no slouch at wartime romance: Froelich's liaison with an Italian nurse has moments of Farewell to Arms-like lyricism. Top-notch war fiction.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.