The Uniform

In this impressive debut, screenplay writer Gruen makes the most of his premise—a Jew’s desperate efforts to survive the Nazis—and conveys the horrors of the Holocaust on a small scale. Since 1939, David Korda, who received a first-rate medical education at Prague’s finest university, has been reduced to menial work as a German prisoner, “grading roads, laying rail ties and mining salt.” In 1944, he’s imprisoned in an Austrian labor camp, but his luck enduring the harsh treatment and deprivation is running out. With transfer to a death camp imminent, Korda gets an unexpected piece of good fortune. An SS officer at the labor camp, Karsten Hausler, is killed by his mistress, Petra, during a fight following his discovery of her Jewish ancestry. Korda, who’s been treating Petra’s horse, finds Hausler’s corpse concealed in the horse’s straw-filled wagon and realizes that he might be able to escape by wearing the dead man’s uniform. The ruse sets up numerous fraught situations. The author maintains a high level of tension as he keeps readers guessing how everything will play out. Gruen is off to a fine start. (Self-published)