NEEDLING

Re-read Thierry Jonquet’s novel, Le Secret du Rabbin. Enjoyed it. I’d forgotten it, and recently loaned it to my folks. My mom was looking for some books in French. They told me how much they enjoyed it, so I picked it back up and gave it a new read. Fun polar, French style. Historical setting in post World War I Europe, mostly Poland, and the war they were fighting against the Reds. The story starts with an old Rabbi dying in a forgotten shtetl somewhere in Galicia circa 1920. He’s dying. He dies. A few years prior, he had gotten a promise out of the new Rabbi that his will would be taken seriously. He leaves a “treasure” to the youngest surviving members of his family, who happen to be spread out to the four corners of the world, the bulk of the family having been murdered during a horrible pogrom. We meet Four individuals in their early thirties. One gangster from NYC who hangs out with Bugsy and company, an officer from the French army wounded during WWI, a Zionist fighting the Brits in Palestine, and a Communist thoroughly engaged in the Bolshevik revolution. We follow their respective stories as they all make it back to the shtetl, all with their ulterior motives, the war raging everywhere, history all over the place. We meet the legendary gangsters of NYC, Lenin, Einstein, to name the big ones... all in all a really good “polar.” Well written, engaging, fun, suspenseful. A good read when you simply want a good escape with some fine writing. Plus you get a good history lesson at the same time.