Maisie Dobbs (Jacqueline Winspear)

Just after WWI, Maisie Dobbs sets herself up in London as a private detective. She is a terrific character: former downstairs maid, university student, wartime nurse, and now solver of mysteries, someone who cares a lot about people and is stunningly brilliant. In this first story of the series she is drawn into an investigation of a secluded farm called The Retreat where soldiers disfigured in the war can find comfort and acceptance, but her instinct that something is amiss there proves appallingly true. Masie's weapons include a near-telepathic ability to tell what people are feeling and the ability to blend in and play many roles, but mostly she is brave and smart and compassionate. I expect to read more in this series.

Life After Life (Kate Atkinson)

I enjoyed this rather odd story, but left it unsatisfied. Ursula Todd is born on a snowy morning in 1910, but dies in childbirth. She is born, and is saved by her doctor, but falls from the roof when she tries to rescue a doll that was tossed out the window. She drowns at the seashore; she is rescued by a stranger. Over and over again, she lives, and dies. It is fascinating to see the events in the world, and in her life, from so many different perspectives, and all the settings and people are beautifully drawn.. Eventually she begins to remember her past lives, and starts trying to manipulate what happens. I really enjoyed it all, but at the end it didn't seem to have gone anywhere. She set herself a specific goal, and I can't even tell whether she accomplished it or not. Aside from this letdown at the end, it is a good story.

The Assault (Harry Mulisch)

This is a powerful story of one small horror from WWII that destroyed a Dutch family and the ways it affected the one of them the rest of his life. One of the hated Nazi collaborators in a small town is shot to death on the street. His body initially fell in front of one house, and then the people living there drag it in front of their neighbor's house. As the neighbors debate what to do, and the hotheaded older son decides to go out and move the body again to protect the family, the Nazi police show up. They pull the family out of the house and set it afire. The younger son is only 12 at the time, and he is taken by the Germans to a prison cell, then turned over to his uncle in Amsterdam to live out the rest of the war. He puts the events of that night out of his mind, and only gradually over the years pieces together what really happened. As moving and affecting as the story is, it didn't grab me. Because the main character works so hard to wall off his feelings for his family's catastrophe, the book felt distant. I was unable to get inside him and feel anything much for his struggle, because he didn't allow himself to feel anything much himself. Thus I was disappointed, and can't give the book the wholehearted endorsement I otherwise would.

Dispatches from the Edge (Anderson Cooper)

Anderson Cooper has been a reporter and anchor for CNN for years, bringing back stories from some of the worst places in the world: Sarajevo, Somalia, Beirut, Iraq, and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, In this memoir he tells what some of those stories were like. He talks about the driving need to tell the truth about what people were experiencing, and about the need to get out there where lives were in danger because of his own addiction to the adrenaline rush. It is an honest and open look at what this life was like for him. He also talked about his own childhood, growing up as the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, losing his father to a heart attack at age 10 and his brother to suicide four years later. These stories helped illuminate the person he became, but I have to admit the juxtaposition was often annoying, as when the tears of a grandmother in Sarajevo, whose family was torn apart and dying, reminded him of the tears of his nanny when she had to leave as he entered high school. Though I'm sure the psychological resonance was real, he seemed to be equating his loss to hers. When he talked about the lives of those around him, though, his voice spoke true.

All Clear (Connie Willis)

This is the second half of a single novel, published in two parts (the first part was Blackout). It belongs to Willis's time travel universe, which I enjoy a lot. Aside from being much too long, this is another good story in this setting. Three historians go back in time to the London Blitz and become trapped, unable to get back to their present (our future - 2060). The story describes their attempts to find each other, then to figure out what is wrong and how to get out. The backdrop of WWII London is compelling, making "England's finest hour" vivid and underlining the strength and courage of the people who lived through it. There is too much redundancy (too many newspaper clues, too many near misses, too many exploits of the Hodbins), and then the very end is not given quite enough (who exactly is he?), but it is still very much enjoyable.

Blackout (Connie Willis)

This is half a story, set in the same universe as Willis's Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog (the second half is in the volume called All Clear, which I'll be reading soon). It is a time-travel novel, but it's really more about WWII, the time period visited by the historians from Oxford in 2060. These intrepid explorers get to their various assignments (observing children evacuated to the countryside, ordinary heroes of Dunkirk, and Londoners during the Blitz) and settle in, before things start to go wrong. The book is much too long - there is no need for devoting quite so much time to the paperwork snafus and scheduling headaches at Oxford, or the logistical problems with trying to take a train in wartime England. Willis makes the places and the people seem real, though, so I never quite lost patience with the Keystone Cops feel of things. I look forward to reading the rest of the story soon.

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)

This is a big book with an amazing number of threads: math, computers, cryptography, World War II, treasure hunting, data security, hacking, and more. At first, the two halves of the story (WWII and present day) seem connected only by the last names of some of the characters and the general theme of cryptography, but by the end everything has come together. I enjoyed all the science geekery, presented in a way that is accessible but also accurate, and was completely caught up in the personal stories of loyalty, trust, and love. Highly recommended.

The Postmistress (Sarah Blake)

This lovely, intensely moving novel explores issues of love and truth against the backdrop of WWII. Three women's lives are intertwined in a small town at the tip of Cape Cod: the local doctor's young bride, a cocky radio reporter, and the town's postmistress. Their lives are all affected by experiences that happen, in the author's words, "around the edges" of the war. There are no combat scenes here, though part of the story is set in London during the Blitz and part follows the horror of the mass deportations of Jews in Europe. Still, the war has profound effects on all of them, and threatens their deepest convictions. I became very involved in their lives, and their actions were always believable and poignant. Beautifully written.