Monday, July 23, 2012

What is Rebecca Cantrell reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Rebecca Cantrell, author of the Hannah Vogel mystery series set in Berlin in the 1930s, including A Trace of Smoke, A Night of Long Knives, A Game of Lies, and the newly released A City of Broken Glass.

Her entry begins:
Right now I’m reading two books at the same time.

The first is a collection of essays about Berlin. It’s in German, and it’s called Berlin literarisch or Literary Berlin and is edited by Jürgen Engler.

It’s a literary romp through Berlin as seen through the eyes of the writers who have lived or visited here at some time during the last three hundred years. Some love it, some hate it, but all of them are drawn into the mysterious energy that is Berlin....[read on]
About the book, from the publisher:
In Rebecca Cantrell's A City of Broken Glass, journalist Hannah Vogel is in Poland with her son Anton to cover the 1938 St. Martin festival when she hears that 12,000 Polish Jews have been deported from Germany. Hannah drops everything to get the story on the refugees, and walks directly into danger.

Kidnapped by the SS, and driven across the German border, Hannah is rescued by Anton and her lover, Lars Lang, who she had presumed dead two years before. Hannah doesn’t know if she can trust Lars again, with her heart or with her life, but she has little choice. Injured in the escape attempt and wanted by the Gestapo, Hannah and Anton are trapped with Lars in Berlin. While Hannah works on an exit strategy, she helps to search for Ruth, the missing toddler of her Jewish friend Paul, who was disappeared during the deportation.

Trapped in Nazi Germany with her son just days before Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Hannah knows the dangers of staying any longer than needed. But she can’t turn her back on this one little girl, even if it plunges her and her family into danger.
Learn more about the book and author at Rebecca Cantrell's website and blog.

Read "The Story Behind the Story: A City of Broken Glass" at The Rap Sheet.

The Page 69 Test: A Trace of Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Trace of Smoke.

The Page 69 Test: A Game of Lies.

My Book, The Movie: A Game of Lies.

Writers Read: Rebecca Cantrell.

--Marshal Zeringue