A Stranger in the Family
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Review
'Suspects galore, great relish in the writing, gleeful deceiving stuff' John Coleman, Sunday Times
Product Description
At the age of three, Kit Philipson was abducted whilst on holiday with his family in Italy. He grew up adored by his adopted parents but as his mother lay dying she told him her terrible secret and gave him the name and address of his real mother. Isla Novello is thrilled to have her long lost son back but not all of the family are happy to welcome Kit back into the fold. They're all concerned about their inheritance now their brother is back on the scene. And why are they all so reluctant for him to investigate his disappearance all those years ago? Kit is determined to find out the truth about his abduction and the murky motives that lay behind it. His search for the truth will see him questioning the morality of all those near and dear to him and take him on an epic journey across Europe and back in time to the horrors of Nazi Germany.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Barnard writes true mysteries...,
By
This review is from: Stranger in the Family, A (Hardcover)
Robert Barnard, the British author, writes small books. Small in physical size and generally, small in scope and plot. Barnard's books are generally filed as "mysteries" but they are mysteries in the true sense of the word. Not a lot of death and physical mayhem; Barnard's books are psychological mysteries. Cerebral, of the mind, in the family, in small spaces..."A Stranger in the Family", Barnard's latest, has no murders, other than those murdered by the Nazis and their allies. The plot, which ranges in time from the 1930's to modern days, ties the Kindertransport of 1939 to a more modern child abduction. Two boys, both three years old, are taken from their families. One, Jurgen Greenspan, is sent out of Germany on the last Kindertransport with his slightly older sister, Hilde and raised in England by adopted parents. The other, Peter Novello, is snatched from his parents while vacationing in Sicily and is adopted by the now-grown Jurgen and his wife in Glasgow. Only on his adopted mother's deathbed, does she tell Peter, referred to as Kit by his adoptive parents, the name of his birth mother. After her death, Kit tracks down his birth family in Leeds and is accepted by his mother, estranged father, and siblings with varying degrees of warmth. Kit sets out to discover how he was taken from Sicily and ended up in Glasgow. His journey of discovery takes him to London, Vienna, and Sicily, touching on people's memories of the times and events. Few people in the book are all good or all bad (except Peter's birth father, who's an unreconstructed "baddie"); Barnard draws all his characters with a nuanced touch sadly missing in many works of fiction. There's very little physical action in the book; the action is nearly all of the mind. Barnard's books are pure gems and thankfully he's a fairly prolific writer.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Plodding and poorly written,
By
This review is from: Stranger in the Family, A (Paperback)
I had really mixed feelings about this book, and I'm afraid I cannot understand those reviewers who awarded it 5 stars. It really just consists of pages and pages of expositional dialogue (most of which is stilted and unconvincing), and the author doesn't seem to have the knack of creating tension and suspense.The central idea for the plot is very good but it is wasted here, because most of the central characters are only described during the aforementioned dialogue; we never actually get to meet most of them. Consequently, it was hard to care when a fresh revelation was made about them. A minor irritation for me was that the name of Kit's brother-in-law changes half way through the book from Ivor to Ivan. I don't know if this was a mistake by the author, but any editor worth their salt should have noticed such a glaring error and corrected it before the book was anywhere near being published. I have only given this book 2 stars instead of 1 because the idea was such an intriguing one, and the prologue was nicely set up, but it all went rapidly downhill from there and I only finished it because I didn't have anything else to read at the time.
2.0 out of 5 stars
dubious Schnidlers,
By Dominic Swayne (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger in the Family, A (Hardcover)
Intelligently written, well-meaning, but plodding and unexciting. Kit's quest for the truth -- part of which concerns the trafficking of Jewish children out of Germany -- contains few surprises and the revelations, when they come, are only too predictable. The American edition is billed as a 'Novel of Suspense', but there is very little suspense in the book. All the events are related at second hand, invariably in conversation. I found the last couple of chapters next to unreadable.
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