Past atrocities in South West Africa, the rise of the Nazis and the barbarous nature of the last century, The Traitor's Emblem is, as Gomez-Jurado writes at one stage, also a "look at the calm, clear nightmare into which Germany was plunging so enthusiastically". Unable to understand why his mother tolerates the appalling way she is treated by her relatives, Paul is himself the victim of his elder cousin's bullying and casual brutality.Īs a result of Jurgen's cruelty, Paul's fantasies about his late father are shattered and he sacrifices everything in his search for the truth. 15-year-old Paul Reiner and his widowed mother work as servants in the rapidly decaying mansion of her sister's family, the aristocratic but no-longer-wealthy Von Schroeders. The story itself begins in 1919 as Germany acknowledges but refuses to accept defeat following World War I. Refusing to sell it, he instead learns the astonishing story behind the mysterious motif. More than sixty years later, the captain's son is offered a small fortune for the emblem. The captain of a Spanish gunboat rescues a group of German castaways and is given a strange-looking emblem made of gold and diamonds in exchange for safe passage to the Portuguese coast. Does a story of love and politics necessarily have to embrace the extremes of both to be enjoyable? Would a normal courtship and mainstream politics be too mundane to sustain the pace?Ī fascinating historical piece of fiction, The Traitor's Emblem starts in 1940 in a storm off the coast of Gibraltar.
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