Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Long Night of Adam Kelno, September 23, 2005
QB VII is Leon Uris' masterful fictionalization of a libel suit which grew out of the publication of his book EXODUS. In EXODUS, Uris named a Nazi doctor whom, he asserted, performed experimental surgery on human guinea pigs in Auschwitz. The doctor sued Uris in a British court, much as QB VII's "Dr. Kelno" sues author "Abe Cady" about allegations of experimentation in "Jadwiga Concentration Camp."
This may well be Uris' best book. Uris, who is usually addicted to operatic plotlines, stiff dialogue, and stentorian characters handles the human dimensions of his protagonists quite nicely in QB VII; as a matter of fact, Kelno seems more sympathetic overall than Cady. It is not until the trial progresses that we see Dr. Kelno's underlying character flaws consume him.
Uris spends a lot of time both entertaining and educating us about the traditions of the British legal system. As an American lawyer who studied in London, this reviewer was pleased to see that Uris respects (and even loves) the Common Law tradition of which he writes very well.
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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Review Does Not Ruin The Plot, June 25, 1999
When reading the liner notes for this book, you expect to read the same horrors we have all been exposed to when exploring the events surrounding the Holocaust. While the more harrowing events can never be allowed to be forgotten, what is wonderful about this book is Uris never takes you on a frightful train ride in a closed-in boxcar or makes you watch a baby being murdered. Instead, in typical Uris fashion, he focuses on a completely different aspect of the Holocaust (I won't ruin it) that allows us to travel from London to Borneo to Poland to Czechoslovakia to the southern United States to Sausalito, California. He cleverly divides the book into four gripping sections (again, I won't ruin it by describing those sections), the final of which will have you SNATCHING the pages out of the book you will be turning them so fast. Uris' background in the military, as always, provides a superb picture of "comraderie" (sp?) as the two "teams" in this book (noted on the liner notes, so I didn't ruin anything) rally together on their individual sides to try to win their case. While it is not overtly "military", certainly we gain a sense of "a commander and his soldiers" as each team puts together its defense. Having read Battle Cry, Topaz, Trinity, Redemption and now QB VII, I can safely say that this is a theme that quite successfully runs through many of Uris' books.Do not take this book with you on vacation. You won't see a THING for having shut yourself in your hotel room to finish it! Read QB VII after a hard day at work or on a lazy weekend when you can't stand the site of your car. My only gripe, and it's minor, so he still gets 5 stars: Uris tends to refer to the Holocaust as the WORST thing that has ever happened in recorded history. As an African-American whose recently-deceased great-grandmother's parents and older sister were slaves, I beg to differ and (somewhat) take offense. Certainly, Africans were dragged from their homes as the Jews were, traveled MUCH farther distances with the same lack of food and dignity, were separated from their families, were raped, beaten and murdered for making eye contact with the wrong person, were imprisoned over their LIFETIMES with no chance of "surviving till the war ends", were often chained to each other and/or something in their surroundings (imagine needing to go to the bathroom when you are chained to something or someone) and had little chance for developing a Resistance or an Underground, as they were punished by death for learning how to read. But, this is Uris' book and his point of view, to which he is entitled. He tells his story well, entertains without greatly offending (think Gone with the Wind), and presents his work CLEARLY as fiction where, happily (or else all books would sound alike) sometimes anything goes. Definitely as 5-star novel!
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating human approach to the horror of the Holocaust, June 26, 2001
I think that this is Leon Uris's finest book, and the fact that it tackles such an unspeakable atrocity as the Holocaust makes it all the more powerful. The characters are fascinating - we have the Israli military hero author who is being sued and who is the less sympathetic of the two protagonists, and the doctor who has been slandered - who appears to be a man who has dedicated his life to helping people.But is it all as it seems? Interspersed with the well crafted and written story of the lives of these two men we also have the pomp and formality of the British Court System. This in itself makes the book one of the finest legal thrillers I have read. Ultimately such a story must have an ending. And what an ending! As they say, you read a book to get to the ending and you won't be disappointed. It is a fabulous novel and one I highly recommend.
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