The one man

Andrew Gross, 1952-

Book - 2016

"1944. Physics professor Alfred Mendl is separated from his family and sent to the men's camp, where all of his belongings are tossed on a roaring fire. His books, his papers, his life's work. The Nazis have no idea what they have just destroyed. And without that physical record, Alfred is one of only two people in the world with his particular knowledge. Knowledge that could start a war, or end it. Nathan Blum works behind a desk at an intelligence office in Washington, DC, but he longs to contribute to the war effort in a more meaningful way, and he has a particular skill set the U.S. suddenly needs. Nathan is fluent in German and Polish, he is Semitic looking, and he proved his scrappiness at a young age when he escaped fr...om the Polish ghetto. Now, the government wants him to take on the most dangerous assignment of his life: Nathan must sneak into Auschwitz, on a mission to find and escape with one man. This historical thriller from New York Times bestseller Andrew Gross is a deeply affecting, unputdownable series of twists and turns through a landscape at times horrifyingly familiar but still completely compelling"--

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Subjects
Genres
Thrillers (Fiction)
Historical fiction
Published
New York : Minotaur Books 2016.
Language
English
Main Author
Andrew Gross, 1952- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
416 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781250079527
9781250079503
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* In 1944, as scientists race to devise the weapon to end the war, those in the Manhattan Project need one man: Alfred Mendl, a Polish professor of electromagnetic physics, who worked out a process of separating U-235 from U-238. But Mendl is imprisoned in Auschwitz, where his wife and daughter died and from which only two men have ever escaped. So an OSS officer devises a plan to smuggle an operative into the death camp to get Mendl out. The optimum operative tuns out to be Lieutenant Nathan Blum, a Jew fluent in Polish and German who carries the guilt of being the only member of his family to escape his native Poland during the Holocaust. The narrative toggles between the weakening Mendl passing his formulas to a teen with a remarkable memory (he's a chess champion) and a Nazi intelligence officer who knows something is up and is trying to put together clues. This is a genre departure for Gross, who was inspired by his Polish father-in-law to write a Holocaust espionage novel. While the Mendl plot is fictitious, the background and many characters are historically based, adding compassion and depth to a story that is as moving as it is gripping. A winner on all fronts.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

After escaping Poland early in World War II, Nathan Blum becomes a U.S. Army intelligence officer tasked with breaking into Auschwitz to rescue Alfred Mendl, a physicist with critical knowledge of atomic bomb development. Meanwhile, in the concentration camp, Mendl, knowing he is unlikely to survive his imprisonment, begins training a young savant to memorize necessary formulas for Allied scientists in the event of a rescue. VERDICT Gross's stand-alone page-turner is a perfect combination of thriller and historical fiction. Readers come to care about the characters' fates as the suspense and tension build. (LJ 6/1/16) © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.