As I have mentioned several times before, our Library’s Book Club is set up differently than most book clubs. Normally members of a book club all read the same book and discuss it. In our book club members are given a theme, then they can pick out and read any novel they want with that theme, then we discuss the various topics that come up in those novels that are read. Our theme for May was “Mysteries in Historical Fiction.” One of the books I chose was The Last Wolf by Margret Mayhew.
Because I like to do my reading on my iPad, I went onto library’s Libby App and did a search for “Historical Fiction” and “Mystery”. Among the many choices presented I chose and downloaded The Last Wolf, and I found it to be a very interesting and enjoyable read.
The story begins in 1936 on an island off of Scotland, where Stroma, a ten year old girl, and Hamish her older brother spend their childhood summers with their grandparents. While they live in London with their parents, they both really loved being on the small out of the way island, exploring the very rural and natural life it provided. Their grandparents lived without electricity or hot water. Although it was a rather old fashion rural life, the two kids love it.
That summer, a sailing ship docked in the rather large, but hidden harbor just down from their grandparents house. The ship was owned by a German naval man, who was taking his two sons on a sailing excursion. He was an ex-U-boat captain, and wanted to show his boys the secret harbor where he had sheltered his U-boat during World War I when it needed some maintenance.
Seventeen year old Reinhard, one of the sons, walked up a path to explore the island and ran into ten year old Stroma. He knew a bit of English, and the two enjoyed meeting each other. The Germans were invited to dine at Stroma’s grandparents large house that night. When the Germans sailed away, Stroma and Reinhard continued their friendship by writing each other over the years.
Of course, with the start of World War II, their communications and friendship became strained and ended, due to the fact that Reinhard had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a U-boat officer and later a U-boat commander. U-boats gained the well deserved reputation of being murdering predators, preying upon British and American ships, which usually were not military ships, but rather supply freighters and even passenger ships, killing both crews and civilians. U-boats would make sneak attacks both alone as a “lone wolf” or in groups and were were referred to as “wolf packs,” thus the “wolf “reference in the novel’s title.
While Reinhard fought for Germany, Stroma now a young woman, helped her country’s war effort by becoming a “Wren” working in the secret underground British military office, monitoring the location of ships and U-boats.
The storyline was set up to alternate between what Reinhard was doing, and what Stroma was doing. I found the parts about Reinhard very interesting; telling about the horrific living conditions in a submarine, and just how deadly effective their attacks were in trying to stop the freight ships carrying supplies from North America to England.
Although my search had classified this novel as both “Historical Fiction” and “Mystery”, there really was no mystery. Only mystery I saw while reading and assuming that by the end of the novel, Stroma and Reinhard would somehow end up together, was just how that might happen, amidst all of the extreme hatred and antagonism between England and Germany during the war. The novel did of course, resolve that mystery.
You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment