Hart's War

Rating:
Summary: Hart's War
Review: Stallag Luft Thirteen is a prisoner-of-war camp in Bavaria. All its prisoners are flyers - americans, british, canadians -, somehow shot down during the second World War. Some of them have been there for just a few days, some of them for almost two years. The german guards are harsh, but not too much, and the prisoners learn to live as best as they can in the enclosed environment - playing cards, baseball, trading stuff.

Then, one day, a new man comes to the camp - but he's not like the other prisoners, or so they think so: he's a black flyer, named Lincoln Scott. Soon, racial manifestations start to occur. And when the camp's "trader" - a man like Red from "Shawshank redemption" - is murdered, all eyes and fingers turn to accuse Scott. Tommy Hart, the main character of the book, is designated to defend Scott, and together they will disclose truths that were hidden well beneath the camp's earthy surface.

I had previously read another Katzenbach novel - "Just cause", a great thriller. "Hart's war" is a different book. Hart is claustrophobic, and Katzenbach, setting his novel in the confined space between the camp's fences and walls, makes the reader feel a little claustrophobic too. There's no way to escape - the camp has never lost one prisoner. Hart, Scott and their british and canadian friends have to find what really happened in order to save Scott from the death squad.

This blend of legal thriller, historic fiction, action sequences and conspiracy theory makes "Hart's war" really great. The epilogue is corny, but touching.

Grade 9.1/10


Rating:
Summary: Rated 1st out of 2000+
Review: I have studied English for 5 years and am addicted to the written word. This is one of the best books I have EVER read. There is nothing i can say which will do it justice. It is amazing. It is a must have for every library.

Rating:
Summary: Hart's War Story Told.
Review: The piece of work deserves the five star rating I have given it. John Katzenbach has rally excelled with this story of struggle, might and cruelty of Allied POW camps in Nazi occupied Europe.

Racial descrimination is the catalyst for this novel. A young AfroAmerican, Lt Lincoln Scoot, has been set up to take the fall for the murder of a well known but disliked Army seargent, a racist bigot, so as to divert attention away from a plan for a mass escape.

An equally young 2nd Lt Tommy Hart (who in civil life studied law at Havard)is sent on a wild goose chase with the help of a Canadian lawyer in the same situation to free the accused.

They soon discover that the trail is a complete set up by the highest ranked Allied officer so as to shake off suspicion by their captors, a moderate commandant and a sadistic 2nd in charge.

You can take a short cut and watch the movie or read the more fuller version with all the bits the movie left out.

Rating:
Summary: Good twist on a murder mystery
Review: One would have to ask oneself upon reading this if it is primarily a POW story which features a murder, or a murder mystery that happens to take place in a POW camp. In this case, I'll take it as primarily a POW story with a twist, and it is that twist that makes it good reading.

First of all, any POW story set in World War II would have to have something different to it. This type of story was done as completely as it possibly could have been with "The Great Escape" many years ago. We know that in a WWII camp there are going to be escape committees, tunnels, and various people providing various roles to complete the project. We also know that while it is the Germans' job to prevent escape, Allied ingenuity is going to somehow give it the old college try.

So having a murder take place among the POWs, probably committed by another POW makes it interesting. For while it would be the Germans that do any firing squads, it is up to the prison population to take care of the trial. One of the most interesting parts of the book are when Germans themselves are called as witnesses, and their observations on American justice are examined.

Added to this interest is the race card. It was true that black airmen fought in WWII amid a lot of bigotry. As it was pointed out, many in charge were so skeptical that it could be done (in those times), that those that passed the training became a crack unit of soldiers. But this being over 50 years ago, there were more then that would not believe this possible, and that adds to the hatred when the person accused of the murder happens to be a black airman.

This is overall a good read, although when all the facts are finally presented, I'm not sure what happened can even be called a murder, given the circumstances of war.

Rating:
Summary: The Movie and Book are Quite Complementary!
Review: First of all, the book Hart's War, written by John Katzenbach, son of Nicholas Katzenbach, the Attorney General in the Johnson Administration, differs in many ways from the resulting movie. Each stands on its own, and my review of the movie stands.

The book is intriguing and will provide information which will enrich viewing the movie. Details differ in many ways from the screenplay, which in this writer's view, is a good thing. Some characters in the film are amalgamations of persons in the book, but the book is enriched with details that might pass one by in the audio-visual drama. For example, the phrase "goon up" is only heard off-camera, except when spoken by Kommandant Visser, and his pronunciation sounds like "guten Abend" (I believe he is a Romanian actor, and a great cast for the characters of Visser and von Reiter in the book). Another example, the term "kriegie" which POWs use for one another passes by very quickly in the movie, yet is a designation full of layers of meaning (based on the German word "Krieg").

It is not necessary to detail the plot--it is a murder mystery like the movie, but the tempo is quite different and the book itself is a masterpiece of historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: A very good book
Review: The book(superior to the movie in every detail) tells the story of the trial of one Licolion Scott an African American pilot shot down over Germany and his rather Kangaroo court. Scott is the sole suspect in the murder of a fellow (racist) prisoner. The odds are stacked against him and the situation does not look good. The story is told from the point of view of Tommy a navigator shot down over Libya. Because he spent half a semester in law school he is appointed to serve as Scott's defense lawyer(he is woefully prepared).

As you read this book you will discover that the plot will thicken into ways you could not possibly imagine on first picking it up. There is plenty of action to keep you interested throughout the book there is even humor in some places and nice plot twist at the end you will not be expecting. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys World War 2 fiction.