Shadows on St. Germain [Paperback]

Nancy Bowie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2003

Following an ill-advised raid on the Normandy coast, severely wounded Canadian Ian Frasier is rescued by partisan Jacqueline Tousignant and is given the identity of her dead husband. Her home, the village of St. Germain, is teeming with intrigue between local resistance and competing factions of SS and members of Abwehr. The community harbors a second surviving Ranger. Rumors are that he was assigned to convince a leading German scientist, Dr. Bauer, to defect to England. The Ranger is given papers identifying him as one of a number of Frenchmen shipped home from Germany to repair damage caused by the Canadians. The story unfolds with Ian, as Andre Tousignant, and the Ranger, interacting with the Germans in their separate ways. The Ranger, Branch Compton, is introduced to the Compte and the flamboyant American heiress, Comptesse de Fleury, and is entertained at their Chateau along with German officers. A member of Canaris’s Abwehr and a member or Himmler’s SS are assigned to find out why the raid was so successful. It is thought that there might be a traitor in the Germans’ midst.

Product Details

• Paperback: 203 pages
• Publisher: PublishAmerica (April 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591293987
• ISBN-13: 978-1591293989
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,444,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars More than Intrigue, June 15, 2003

By 

Roger Sween (Red Wing, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadows on St. Germain (Paperback)

Nancy Bowie has written a thriller with a strong narrative style. And a deft combination of historical event with individualized characters drives the rapid plot. It begins with the allied raid on Dieppe in August 1942, an actual event. Though the German occupiers of Normandy are surprised, they repulse the British-led forces who suffer great loss of life. Some of the commandos are left behind and 2,000 taken prisoner. Thus begins the story.

Jacqueline Tousignant and her three sons shelter Ian Fraser, a wounded Canadian, and pass him off as her husband, André, who was killed in the same raid. Also in hiding is young Charles Compton, an American, a man on a secret mission. When Fraser and Compton, masquerading as Frenchman, connect with the local resistance cell, the plan begins to infiltrate the Chateau of the local Comte de Fleury. German officers congregate there and among them, regaining his health, is an aged Professor Bauer, a physicist, critical of the Nazis but essential to the war effort.

Bowie writes with an elegant third-person style that evokes the ambience of the 1940s in a narrative voice that is neither American, British nor Continental but some cosmopolitan fusion of them all. Her story weaves smoothly among a number of characters of varied backgrounds intertwined with the intricately plotted events that move to a cataclysmic conclusion. Over and again in a few well-chosen words, she sets up characters that are distinct and memorable. The character detail is admirably achieved; even the three Tousignant sons, only one of whom is significant to the story, are distinguished from one another. We see each character's intellectual and emotional makeup and how they act or puzzle their way to action.

Bowie surprises and delights by the atypical in her story. There are as many women as men who play important roles and affect the novels dramatic outcome. And she is subtle about who are the good guys and the bad-the men of examined conscience among the Germans, the cruel psychopaths among the allies.

Obviously Bowie worked long and hard on this novel, condensing volumes of research and a walk through the actual setting, to feel comfortable in her swift telling of it. Quite an achievement for a first novel. I was impressed and inspsired by her accomplishment.