The Shadowboxer by Noel Behn (1969-05-03)

by Noel Behn

Book Overview

The author's chilling descriptions of Nazi-occupied Europe are the most vivid and convincing you may ever read anywhere or ever possibly experience in print. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: B01FIXX24E
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Original Heart of Darkness

A ripping great book with a fast-moving, well told story line. Erik Spangler is a free-lance agent used by the Allies in WWII, but strictly for his own reasons. Incredibly capable at espionage, able to move in Nazi territory and into and out of concentration camps, Spangler is driven by his own personal demons. I never could figure why Hollywood never made a mini-series of this book. Although at the time it would have been hard to get it on TV, the weave of the story would be almost impossible to get onto the big screen and do the book any kind of justice. Spangler is a driven man with allegainces only to a few friends and an overriding hatred of Fascism. If you are looking for a really great WWII read - this is it.

great book (for one reader at least)

The Italian poet Eugenio Montale wrote in his Nobel acceptance speech that any book spawns a virtual ideal reader, the book's "target". Well, I wonder whether on earth there's a better atavar of this book's target than me. I read this book a long time ago and it marked my perception of a decisive hisorical as well as existential moment. The description of Nazi-occupied Europe is the most vivid and convincing I have ever read or otherwise experienced. You have to read the German, English and Russian newspapers of those years to get the same flavour, except that here the apocalyptic weirdness and ambiguity of the whole are masterfully exploded. It is an eerie, intense book.