#REVIEW - The One Man by Andrew Gross - NEW Release today, Aug 23, 2016!

Description:

1944. Physics professor Alfred Mendl is separated from his family and sent to the men’s camp, where all of his belongings are tossed on a roaring fire. His books, his papers, his life’s work. The Nazis have no idea what they have just destroyed. And without that physical record, Alfred is one of only two people in the world with his particular knowledge. Knowledge that could start a war, or end it.

Nathan Blum works behind a desk at an intelligence office in Washington, DC, but he longs to contribute to the war effort in a more meaningful way, and he has a particular skill set the U.S. suddenly needs. Nathan is fluent in German and Polish, he is Semitic looking, and he proved his scrappiness at a young age when he escaped from the Polish ghetto. Now, the government wants him to take on the most dangerous assignment of his life: Nathan must sneak into Auschwitz, on a mission to find and escape with one man.

This historical thriller from New York Times bestseller Andrew Gross is a deeply affecting, unputdownable series of twists and turns through a landscape at times horrifyingly familiar but still completely compelling.

MY TAKE:

5 STARS!!!

As the description about this book states, there are two men in this entire world we live in who have information that could ‘start or end’ a war. The US government wants these two men alive and safe, and that is what they were trying to do with one of them, Alfred Mendl, that is until the Nazi’s marched into Austria and forced him, his family, and all the people he lived around and with to board the trains to the Auschwitz Concentration Work Camp. Once at Auschwitz, there he and his family were separated by sex. The men went one way, and the women, another. The last we see of Alfred Mendl for the time is he and his son with a Nazi fighting with him to take away his briefcase which he did not want to let go of as it held all of his life’s work. He tried and tried to explain what was in that briefcase, but the Nazi was kind of sarcastically laughing under his breath telling him they would be very careful with it. Not so. This briefcase was thrown into a pile of belongings that were set on fire.

We, the United States, are very well aware of what happened, however, at the moment this is out of our hands, and something needs to be done to help save Alfred Mendl and get him out of the Auschwitz Work Camp. Doing so risks the lives of so many people it’s almost countless. It is not just one life, but many. Still, a mission needs to be carried out, and this is the mission where if one tiny thing goes astray, even so much as a dog barking, there will not be a way to know the sheer number of lives that will be lost, and especially the life of Alfred Mendl along with his knowledge this one man has.

The US decides to carry out a mission to extract Alfred Mendl out of this work camp before it’s too late as they figure there is only about 72 hours left, at the most, before something bad will happen, before the Nazi’s will put these prisoners into the gas chambers.

The United States government decides a desk agent, Nathan Blum, is the man to do the job. Nathan Blum will be the man who will sneak into this work/death camp, and will sneak out with Alfred Mendl. RISKY!!! Can this man do this job, and can he do it effectively and safely enough without risk to not only himself, but everyone else at the camp, too? Nathan Blum is from the area, and he did escape from this area once to save his own life, but can he do it a second time and help save Alfred Mendl, too? THIS is the most delicate of missions we watch work it’s way to a success or not.

Andrew Gross has penned this BRILLIANT, suspenseful, compassionate novel of epoch risk which takes place during World War II.  Both men and women, equally, will be drawn into this story of proportionate risk. Ladies, I promise you will enjoy this story just as much as the men do, as this author has taken everyone into consideration who may come across this book so they can enjoy reading it just as much! No, this book is not just another war story, it is so much more, I promise, and no one will be bored reading this one at all! Anyone who picks this book up and starts to read it will be sitting on the edge of their seats wondering how this mission is going to work, “if” at all. Gross is very successful in drawing us into this amazing story that you will be frantically reading through the pages to find out the answers about this unimaginable mission to see if it works or not. I highly recommend this book!

I received this book for FREE from the Publisher, St Martin’s Press, and also from Buzz Books Spring/Summer 2016 Edition in which the publisher, St Martin’s Press, included this book inside of it making it available for reviewers to request this book in full for review from NetGalley, in exchange that I read then write a review about this book. "Free" means I was provided with ZERO MONIES to do so, but to just enjoy the sheer pleasure of reading this book and then to write an honest review about my opinion of what I thought about this book, regardless if my opinion is positive or negative. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the law set here: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html

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ebook: $12.99
print:   $18.38