cover image The Hunted

The Hunted

Peter Carter. Farrar Straus Giroux, $17 (325pp) ISBN 978-0-374-33520-5

This breathlessly paced historical novel is not a literary masterpiece, but it does an outstanding job of recreating the ambience of WW II France, measuring the chill efficiency of the Gestapo and assessing the ruthless fervor of other accomplices to the Holocaust. When the Italian forces withdraw from France following Italy's surrender in 1943, Vito Salvani, an Italian corporal, gets trapped behind enemy lines--along with Judah, a Jewish child he has promised to take to the safety of Italy. A few innocent missteps and unlucky encounters bring Salvani and his charge to the attention of a particularly single-minded inspector from the Vichy secret police, and a harrowing pursuit begins. Those who help Salvani and Judah are severely punished; several scenes of a Gestapo interrogation suggest the brutality and inexorability of the government's treatment of Jews and other so-called enemies. Carter's ( Borderlands ; Bury the Dead ) characterizations are thin, and neither Salvani nor Judah ever takes on a life beyond the page. Even so, their story is believable and utterly gripping; the reader will leave this novel with some appreciation of the extraordinary good fortune and courage of people who successfully resisted the Nazi regime. Ages 12-up. (May)