A Night of Long Knives

A Night of Long Knives by Rebecca Cantrell

This is the second in her series of Hannah Vogel novels.  Hannah is a journalist, who in the first novel, A Trace of Smoke, kidnaps her adopted son, Anton, from SA leader Ernst Rohm, who wants to believe the boy is his

son. (As a point of reference, I have not read the first Hannah Vogel novel.) She flees Germany and vows never to return to her homeland until Hitler, Rohm and the Nazis are gone. Yet here she is on a journalism junket, with son Anton in tow, to write about a zeppelin trip from South American to Switzerland.  The zeppelin is diverted to Germany and lands in Munich, where Hannah and her son of captured by Rohm. 

The reason I picked up this book was because I thought it would recreate the time period of when Hitler came to power, and what life was like for the people of Germany.  Ever since reading the City of Shadows by Arianna Franklin, I have been looking for other novels or nonfiction stories which could transport the reader back in time.  There is a section in City of Shadows where you literally felt as if you were in Berlin just as the Nazis were infiltrating all aspects of life.  In that novel, there were times you felt you needed to look over your shoulder to make sure you were not being followed.  The atmosphere was stifling.

While there is a lot of looking over your shoulder taking place in A Night of Long Knives, you never really feel the tension or the fear, as you do in City of Shadows.  I believe the reason is Hannah feels more like an observer or visitor to Berlin, than a native.  As the reader, you feel like you are just watching Hannah, as she goes from one calamity to the next.  You never really feel vested in her character.  While Cantrell is trying to place the reader in Hannah's mind, as she constantly poses one question after another of herself.  The problem is she never seems to have any answers, so the questions become rhetorical and redundant.

Based on the Title, I also was hoping to gain greater understanding and insight into this particular event in Nazi Germany.  However, the night of long knives takes place before you realize it.  It really only serves as a plot device, allowing Hannah an opportunity to escape the clutches of Ernst Rohm.  According to this story, Rohm is arrested by Hitler himself, and eventually executed.

While the review in Booklist claims Cantrell "nails the prewar German landscape", the review in Publishers Weekly states, "Cantrell’s sequel...will disappoint those expecting a realistic portrayal of 1934 Nazi Germany."  I would agree with PW in this case.  If you are looking for an atmospheric and realistic portrayal of Nazi Germany, there are much better novels and even nonfiction stories, such as City of Shadows (See Feb. 5, 2011 post) and Eric Larson's In The Garden of Beasts (See October 2011 post) that will transport you back to Nazi Germany.