Customer Reviews

QB VII

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

This was the first Uris novel I ever read and is probably the most enjoyable book I have read by him.The book tells the story of how a Polish doctor Adam Kelno sues American author Abraham Cady after he is named as having being involved in heinous warcrimes during the holocaust.The real triumph of the novel is that Uris puts a human face on the evil of nazism and shows how anti-semitism can corrupt a basically sound man to such an extent.The novel is gripping from start to finish and part of its appeal is you are never sure what twist awaits around the corner.Sheer genius, a literary talent at his most dynamic and brilliant best.

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!

This is Leon Uris' best book -- far better then Exodus, in my opinion.

Abraham Cady learns of his Jewish heritage from his father -- that most of his family had been exterminated at the Jadwiga concentration camp. After becoming immersed in his faith after his father's death, Cady decides to write a book called The Holocaust. In it, he accuses a surgeon, Dr. Adam Kelno, as being one of the doctors at the Jadwiga camp that did experiments on other human beings and was a war criminal. Dr. Kelno finds out about the book, reads it, and decides to sue Cady in court and prove that Cady is a liar. It is a book of deep feeling and gripping suspense; one that deals with the Holocaust and the repercussions that happened so many years later after families found out what actually happened to their relatives. It's a brilliant book -- highly recommended.

This courtroom drama allows Uris to tell the story of the ghosts remaining from the holocaust without using cliched storylines. Instead, he tells an honest story - so honest it actually happened to him - while presenting a complex villain who we begin the novel sympathizing with.

Not only does this book present the difficulties in retelling the stories of the holocaust in its aftermath, it also does a fantastic job of explaining the British legal system.

That being said, Uris still writes rather wooden dialogue. Fortunately, his books are more about story and character, so that flaw can be overlooked.

I found hard to put down this horrific and gut wrenching account of the Holocaust as told by the author through the fictional characters he has based on death camp survivors.The story itself is fiction based on fact and you soon realise that many of the characters are based on real people.When an eminent London surgeon sues an american author for defamation in one of his books the stage is set for the former victims of nazi experiments to have their say,albeit 20 years later and within that bastion of civil rectitude,an english courtroom.I found much of the testimony of the survivors very moving and that moved me to tears.These awful things really happpened and sadly are still happening...somewhere.I pitied the main character Adam Keino but could not sympathise with him.The verdict at the end was a surprise and justified.

This is a really fast-paced and intriguing courtroom book with a rather unique approach the the subject. We're introducted to Dr. Adam Kelno first, the doctor later accused of misusing medicine in a horrific way in the camp he was forced into, and he isn't depicted as a bad guy at all. I came to really like and sympathise with him; he wasn't presumed to be guilty or a bad person, because as of yet we just didn't know what really went on when he was a doctor in the fictitious camp of Jadwiga. Only in Part Two do we get to know Abraham Cady, and we feel equally sympathetic towards him. We don't know who the bad guy is supposed to be until we get into the courtroom, and even then it's not till close to the very end that we find out which of the two of them is the guilty one. We like them both so much that until the evidence starts piling up, we don't know if Cady is really guilty of libel (or at least sloppy research) or if Dr. Kelno was truly carrying out those radiation and sterilisation procedures in the sadistic way he's accused of doing. As for the reviewer who wanted to know why real names and places weren't used, I think it's because this is a work of historical fiction, not a nonfiction account of war crimes or the misuse of medicine in the Nazi camps. One has more leeway when using fictional characters and settings than in using real people, and telling this story in the mode of historical fiction instead of straight nonfiction narrative doesn't take away the emotional truths and deep impact of what happened.

Dr. Kelno, A Polish WWII hero, saved hundreds of poles in the Jadwiga Concentration camp. A conspiracy brought against him by the communist party unsuccessfully charge him as a nazi war criminal. Twenty year later, in "The Holocaust", Kelno is again accused for these crimes and sues the wirter for libel in front of a british court.

In front of the Queen's Bench, a lot of memories, pains and acts of heroism will be brought back to life...Is the good doctor a victim, a murderer or maybe a little bit of both...

This is a well constructed book. Until far into the book you wonder who is right and who is wrong. Faithfull to his great talent for making his characters seem real, Uris brings us the exemplary life of Kelno and the tormented life of the Author, Abraham Cady.

Never has the horror of concentration camp been displayed with such passion, not, like in a lot of books, as statistics but as human beings suffering way past the gate of the camps.

The paramount comes from the fact they are in a British courtroom where displays of love anger or pity are prohibited. Some of the rhetoric and diplomatic mambo-jumbo displayed by the lawyers and the judge to hide the horror described in the courtroom are just crowning this jewel of a book.

Mr. Uris, may you live for a thousand years and write a book every month for I was seaten in this courtroom, following the barristers strategy, sobbing for the victims...praying for a fair verdict.

Case Close.

"QB VII" is nothing short of brilliant. Uris pays close attention to detail, engages the reader and the result is a pleasure to read that is impossible to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.