New Book Alert: Eli's Promise by Ronald H. Balson; Tense and Moving Novel About Death, War Crimes, and Revenge

New Book Alert: Eli's Promise by Ronald H Balson; Tense and Moving Novel About Death, War Crimes, and Revenge

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews





Spoilers: Surely many have it right from the French Revolutionaries to the Klingon Empire that revenge is really a dish best served cold. Though sometimes that cold dish is not served by choice. Sometimes the recipient of that revenge slips away leaving the accusor to spend many years, even decades, of hunting down the person that they hold responsible.


The cold dish of revenge and belated justice is the main theme behind Ronald H. Balson's Eli's Promise, a tense, gripping, andstrong novel. It takes the Reader from 1940's Poland to 1960's Chicago covering twenty-five years, a Polish town, a temporary displaced person's camp, various American businesses and high rises, and two wars before said justice and revenge are finally carried out.

Eli Rosen is a construction worker in Lublin, Poland when the Nazis come blasting their way in. Suddenly, the life he knows is turned around on its head. Jews are moved to a ghetto. Women like his wife are forced to work as seamstresses at a factory. Place names are changed to reflect the new order. Then many people disappear under mysterious circumstances and certain words like "resettlement", "special handling", and "labor camps" carry extremely ominous overtones.


Eli's family including his wife, Esther, father, Jacob, and son, Isaak are under the dubious protection of one Maximilian Poleski, an opportunist and war profiteer. He claims to protect the Rosen Family but only so they serve his purpose. Eli and his brother work under his now proprietorship. Max makes arrangements for favors such as Esther to work in the factory in exchange for money and obtainining young girls. If possible, Maximilian is less likeable than the Nazis. He is a character who is seemingly charming but is really nothing more than a snake looking out for number one.

Eli and his family reluctantly work and barely survive under Maximilian's so-called protection until Eli is temporarily separated from his family. He returns to find his father beaten and his wife and son missing. He is eventually reunited with Isaak but Esther remains missing. It doesn't take much for Eli to realize that Maximilian arranged Esther's departure and even though Eli and Isaak are put into a concentration camp until the end of the war and then placed in a temporary holding place for displaced persons afterwards, Eli never lets go of his desire to reunite with Esther and get retribution towards the man that he considers the author of his misery: Maximilian.


Eli is an extremely heroic character. The more unlikeable that Maximilian is, the more we are rooting for Eli to take him down. We are also rooting for Eli to find his own place and to get his life back together. In the DP camp, Eli shows leadership capabilities by helping the other refugees, ultimately becoming the leader of their community. He is also a devoted single father to Isaak. He soothes the boy's fears, nurses him through Illness, encourages his talents in music and athletics, and tries to heal his trauma. Even though Eli makes a female friend, Esther is not far from his mind. When by chance, he learns that Maximilian is not only still around but up to his old tricks by selling forged U.S. visas, Eli is determined to confront his old foe and find out the truth of Esther's whereabouts.


The plot takes a unique twist into the 1960's just as America's involvement in the Vietnam War begins to escalate. Mimi, an intrepid young journalist from Chicago becomes curious about her suave new boarder, guess who, Eli Rosen. Turns out Eli now works for the State Department and is investigating a corrupt Congressman who also happens to be the father of Mimi's best friend, Christine. Even though this case is half a world and twenty five years away, it puts Eli right in the path of his old arch enemy. The private war between two men that represented the opposite sides of the Holocaust becomes a very public war when it also involves others including Mimi, Christine, their friends and family, and eventually the United States government.

Eli's Promise is a nail biting suspenseful novel as Eli strives to capture Maximilian and or learn the truth only for him to slither away because of his contacts, influence, and charm. It becomes a victorious climax when the two are reunited once more and Maximilian is deprived of any means of escape and Eli finally is able to get justice rained down on the slime.


Eli's Promise is the kind of book that shows that revenge and justice can take awhile, but when they do, they are that much sweeter.