Aliza in Naziland by Elyse Hoffman; Thought Provoking Graphic Holocaust Dark Fantasy Draws The Line Between Vengeance and Justice

 Aliza in Naziland by Elyse Hoffman; Thought Provoking Graphic WWII Dark Fantasy About Hatred, Revenge, and Drawing The Line Between Vengeance and Justice

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Elyse Hoffman’s previous books like The Book of Uriel weave the stark graphic reality of the Holocaust with fantastic elements borrowed from Old Testament scripture, Jewish folklore, and European myths and legends. These books use these fantastic and dark elements to comment on the challenging themes of mortality, prejudice, Antisemitism, courage, sacrifice, faith, maturity, despair, rebellion, anger, and hatred.

In what is probably her darkest volume yet, Aliza in Naziland, Hoffman takes that combination of Holocaust reality and dark fantasy up to eleven with a novel that asks questions about hatred, revenge, retribution, and punishment.

16 year old Aliza Aueman is a Holocaust survivor living in 1950’s Beth-Hadassa, Maryland with her adopted father and sisters. The family is trying to adjust to living in America and dealing with school, interests, and family dilemmas while also suffering from PTSD, Anxiety, and other problems manifested from their time in Europe. They also have to deal with hateful organizations like the Anti-Semitic Black Sun Brotherhood planning a demonstration. Aliza likes her new life better than the old one, but she still has problems with obeying authority, restraining herself from getting into fights, and feeling powerless. 

One day she receives a mysterious note and a visit from a suspicious looking stranger. He says that his name is Ha-Satan and he is “the Heavenly Prosecutor.” He has a proposition for Aliza. Because Hell has grown too big and there are way too many souls to punish, he has decided to separate Hell into different sections, called Zones, and has appointed random mortals to punish the souls within them. There are specific zones called Naziland. 

Aliza is appointed Master over Zone N-1, the most coveted Zone because it contains the souls of prominent Nazis like Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hitler himself! All Aliza has to do is order something to happen to them, no matter how humiliating, torturous, painful, or destructive.The punishment is temporary and all she has to do is return every day to inflict it again. 

Aliza gets a thrill out of this chance to inflict pain on her one-time torturers and takes full advantage of this opportunity. But what starts out as fun and games, albeit violent fun and games, becomes more serious when other people get involved and the hatred of the outside world in Maryland bleeds into the inside world of Zone N-1. 

Aliza in Naziland is an interesting premise that asks a lot of tough questions. Questions like how far is too far when you want to seek vengeance? What is the line between justice and revenge? Do the truly hateful deserve everlasting torment and what gives one the right to inflict it? At what point does the victim and survivor become just as heartless and ruthless as their one time persecutor? 

This book doesn’t provide any easy answers so much that it asks the Readers to investigate their own feelings about the matter, and imagine what they would do if they were in this situation. It provides a scenario of what this traumatized troubled outspoken young girl did as she inflicts punishment but also weighs the consequences of that punishment to herself, her own psyche, her family, her community, and her victims.

Aliza is written as someone who has deeply suffered by the hands of the Nazis, of that there is no doubt. Her birth parents were murdered and she was sent to a concentration camp called Fox Farm. She had been tortured, abused, malnourished, and assaulted. Her memories of her birth parents diminished and were replaced by those of Nazis shouting, beating, and shooting prisoners. She can't even remember her life before the Holocaust because it seems so far away and remote. 

The only positive in Aliza’s life since then had been her new family. Her adopted father, Amos smuggled Jewish orphans out of Europe and adopted four girls, including Aliza, who lost their families. Amos looks after his young charges with firmness, kindness, humor, and strength becoming the father figure that they desperately needed. Aliza also formed a family with her newly adopted sisters, Ute, the quirky animal expert, Shaina the dedicated athlete, and Heidi the sweet tempered beauty with Aliza as the outspoken tomboy. 

Aliza and Heidi's relationship is particularly notable throughout the book. Unlike the other three girls who came from Jewish families and suffered persecution, Heidi's father was a Nazi. Her mother and sister were members of a resistance group and were arrested for treason. Heidi became a prisoner in Fox Farm abused by one time colleagues of her father's. While in Fox Farm, Aliza and Heidi bonded and declared themselves sisters even before Amos found them and made their relationship official. 

Heidi refuses to acknowledge her original family and identifies as Jewish, since she converted but there are many in the neighborhood who won't let her forget where she came from.

The abuse in Aliza's past, the anxieties and trauma that the Aueman family still have to live with, the bullying that Heidi receives, and the arrival of Holocaust denying hate groups would make even the most devout pacifistic milquetoast person want to punish those who wronged them especially if they were truly as soulless and hateful as the Nazis. 

At first the punishment chapters are humorous in a dark comic way. Aliza tells the Nazis to shut up and their mouths are sealed. She makes Goebbels bite his tongue. Himmler holds his breath until he suffocates. Goring hangs himself by piano wire. Hitler bashes his head to the ground and breaks every bone in his body and Heydrich carves out his own heart with his knife. 

From this first example alone, we see Aliza has a dark twisted outlook and doesn't mind inflicting it on the Nazis that she is put in charge of. The more time that she spends in Zone N-1 the more grotesque, graphic, and painful the punishments become. She soon acquires a sadistic delight in torturing the men who caused great suffering and whose actions made her miserable after all these years. 

However, Aliza’s conscience gets the better of her at times. She dials back on punishments concerning the Nazi’s families. She doesn't want to put their children through that mental anguish because they had terrible fathers and were often too young, brainwashed, or victimized to fight back. She remembers Heidi's past and doesn't want them to suffer guilt by association.

Aliza begins to question her role in Hell when a classmate reveals that they are also a Zone Master and their punishments are too severe even for her to contemplate. The turning point occurs when she learns that there is a personal connection between one of the tortured Nazis and her own family. Suddenly, things like humanity, compassion, remorse, and real justice occur as she has to weigh the consequences of their actions and her own.

It is important to note that this character evolution is granted to Aliza and not the Nazis themselves. They made their choices in life and are now simmering in their own vile hatred. They are incapable of change becoming vile and pathetic as they cling to their racist and Antisemitic views. They are the defeated bullies who can't do anything else but whine in retreat and insist that they were right.

Aliza herself has to go through this change. She has to know when enough is enough. She is the one in danger of losing herself to hatred and revenge. She has to remember her own humanity and to emerge as a better person who doesn't get swallowed up by the hatred that poisoned her enemies. 

Retribution by Ian Conner; Conner Returns to Form in Superb Political Thriller

Retribution by Ian Conner; Conner Returns to Form in Superb Political Thriller

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Ian Conner is an author of great versatility. He samples from several genres and writes brilliant books within them. Dark Maiden  is a Supernatural Horror about a ghost and Native American legend that haunts a lake. The Long Game: An Amy Radigan Thriller is a Political Thriller about a reporter and the Vice President of the United States investigating a conspiracy involving several government operatives and the boisterous POTUS. Cardinals is a Dark Fantasy/Religious Satire about Asherah, God's ex wife who roams the Earth as an immortal vampire. Cooper's Ridge is a Science Fiction novel about the discovery, exploration, colonization, and exploitation of a new planet capable of sustaining human life. Griffin's Perch is an Epic Fantasy about a diverse group of heroes that fight against five vengeance seeking dragons. I once described Conner as “the literary equivalent of throwing everything to the wall to see what sticks.” That Conner can effortlessly travel from one genre to another shows great range and commitment to each book and the worlds that he builds within them.

With his latest book, Retribution, Conner returns to form or whatever passes for form in Conner-verse. It is a Political Thriller similar to The Long Game in that it involves a wide ranging conspiracy involving several key American politicians including the President. It is also a Psychological Crime Thriller about hatred, revenge, and the lengths people will go to satisfy their desire for vengeance.

Alex Conway is a broken man. His wife died of cancer during a previous government shutdown. Now his daughter recently died of influenza during another shutdown and his CHIP insurance has been denied. A lottery win does little to raise his spirits but gives him the resources that he needs for a long term plan of vengeance. He locates information on corrupt politicians that voted against health insurance and lobbied for causes like the NRA. He provides information to expose these politicians. He isn't just satisfied with killing their political careers but he wants to end their lives as well.

Meanwhile various FBI agents, government officials, and tenacious reporters investigate the seemingly random deaths of various politicians. This discovery reveals that these murder victims weren't exactly clean and this puts them at odds with powerful people, particularly the obnoxious President Glass. 

Similar to The Long Game, Conner bases his novel on real world events and people to present an even worse case scenario than what we are faced with, as if it could get any worse. Conner's writing suggests that maybe it can.

The most obvious comparison is the fictional President Frederick Glass whose abrasive unlikable nature and felonious past are certainly based on a former President and current presidential nominee. The book even uses some of the real-life model’s familiar sound bites. 

The opening set during a pandemic with overcrowded hospitals, desperate sick people, deaths of millions, and political inaction is definitely reminiscent of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Even many of the plot points are also reminiscent of real life: such as a politician who gets away with a hit and run (probably a composite of similar incidents in the lives of Ted Kennedy and Laura Bush), a Presidential staff member who resigns from the Administration and becomes one of its strongest opponents (shades of Michael Cohen), Republican Christian Evangelist organizations, groups, and think tanks gaining enough power to sway the government to fit their needs (several most notably the Heritage Foundation right now), and the various sex, abuse, assault, and financial scandals (it would be easier to say who isn't involved in those in real life. Uhh…give me a minute).

When truth is stranger than fiction and catches up to the plots of Political Thrillers, it almost makes one wonder if there is really a need for fiction anymore? (That's rhetorical. Of course there is).

The plot of Retribution is particularly intricate with Conway’s revenge against the politicians that he blames for his daughter’s death. He doesn't just settle on one means for murder. That's for amateurs. He decides on several: a fatal auto collision here, poison meant to induce heart attacks there, maybe an anthrax laced envelope or two. Those that don't end up dead suffer massive career hits. Conway goes through various channels to find and expose his enemies.

 Conway's means and methods almost take genius proportions to the point where one could wonder if this was something that he wanted to do for some time. After all, a plan like this could take years to research, weigh the angles, and prepare. Is it entirely possible that this could be something that Conway wanted to do but the love for his family stayed his darker thoughts? That question is never officially addressed or answered but the possibility is there. If so, that calls to question whether his motives are purely out of an understandable desire for revenge or long term resentment towards a country whose leaders fail to let it live up to the standards in which they claim.

Conway is an interesting character who gets the Reader's understanding and empathy up to a point. Who wouldn't become angry at the system after their spouse and child die? It is completely believable when one has nothing to strike back at those who have everything. His means while questionable are fascinating from a storytelling standpoint. 

It helps that the people that Conway goes after are incredibly unlikeable in different ways. They are people who spent a long time getting away with crimes and misbehavior to the point that they are complacent. They are insulated in their privilege and power not seeing how their actions affect others. The murders and exposures are for many the first time that they have to face real accountability for their actions.

It doesn't help that Glass, the ringleader in all of this, is the worst character of them all. He is a completely immoral sociopath whose reaction to accusations is to throw other people under the bus, rivals, allies, staff, Cabinet and Administration members. His restrictive policies, hiring of sycophants, and making strict rules for others but allowing himself and his followers leniency creates many of the issues from the corruption, to the pandemic, to the shutdown. Let alone, not being a good President, Glass barely functions as a decent human being. He would almost be a one-dimensional cartoon villain if again he wasn't actually based on a real person who is still gobbling up headlines in his third bid for the Presidency.

While Glass and his cronies are horrible, Conway also is accountable for his own actions. The more enemies that fall prey to his machinations, the less relatable Conway becomes. He is isolated from those around him and ultimately to the Reader. 

Conway's vengeance becomes an addiction as he puts many in his path without realizing the long term consequences that could result. 

By killing the politicians, Conway is only creating martyrs for their supporters and killing the bodies. He is not destroying the regulations, bills, corruption, or the hypocrisy that caused such issues. In fact if anything, it's continuing even worse despite or because of the deaths. 

There are however people in the book who are able to see through Glass's corruption and Conway's violence and bring the truth forward. Randy Cardinale, Glass’s former Chief of Staff goes from being a Glass loyalist to his staunchest critic after realizing that he could no longer justify or defend his former boss’ actions.

FBI Special Agent Daisy West and her colleagues manage to put together all of the seemingly random information of the murders, including patterns, analysis, clues, and countless research into large files, to discover Conway's identity and motives. West proves to be a formidable opponent against him.

Rebecca Gerber and Chloe Sachs, reporters from rival news networks are able to put ratings and professional rivalries aside and work together to cover the stories of the murders and corruption. Their investigation into the Glass Administration is particularly compelling as they face death threats, assault, and in one chilling chapter arrest to expose not only Conway but the political corruption and machinations that created him.

Retribution is another of Conner's brilliant works. It is a superb look at corruption, politics, money, hatred, revenge, and murder.

 

New Book Alert: Vicious Ripples (The Desire Card Book Four) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Fourth Desire Card Book Brings Things to the Falling Action Act

 

New Book Alert: Vicious Ripples (The Desire Card Book Four) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Fourth Desire Card Book Brings Things to the Falling Action Act

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Stop! Before you read this review, I must give you a homework assignment. Please read either the previous books or my reviews for the other books in the Desire Card Series: Immoral Origins, Prey No More, and All Sins Fulfilled. I am going to reveal some important things in this review and I do not want any Reader to go in unprepared. Needless to say this review contains MAJOR HEAVY DUTY SPOILERS!!!!!

You back and prepped? Okay good, on we go.

Any follower of Shakespeare's plays knows that each play follows a basic five act structure. Act 1 is the introduction, Act 2 is the rising action, Act 3 is the climax, Act 4 is the falling action, and Act 5 is the resolution.

Lee Matthew Goldberg's five volume The Desire Card Series is Shakespearean in structure (and come to think of it in theme and characterization as well).

The first volume Immoral Origins was the Introduction. It introduced us to the Desire Card organization and their beginnings in the 1970's as they grant the wishes of the wealthy for a price. We meet the employees operating in disguise as Hollywood stars such as newcomer Erroll Flynn and the Card's enigmatic founder, Clark Gable. We see the rivalry formed between Gable and head of the European branch, Sir Laurence Olivier and what happens when Flynn tries to get away and revert back to his original identity of petty thief, Jake Barnum.

The second volume, Prey No More is the rising action, set forty years later when the Desire Card has gained power and influence in various business and political circles. They have operators all over the world and one of them, J.D. Storm AKA James Dean, goes on the lam. This results in lots of murders and J.D.'s hatred and thirst for revenge against the card and the people behind it.

All Sins Fulfilled the third book is the climax when well to do, Harrison Stockton needs a liver transplant and solicits a certain card to fill that request. This ends in some major revelations that reveal the people behind the masks, particularly Gable who is much closer than Harrison had previously been aware. It also culminates in J.D.'s act of revenge against Gable, the Card, and all it stands for.

The fourth volume, Vicious Ripples, is the falling action demonstrating what happens after the earth shattering revelations from All Sins Fulfilled are revealed.(The next volume, Desire's End appears to be the resolution where the Card and its treacherous founder come to their long overdue finish.)

Vicious Ripples is set immediately after J.D. Storm, now using the name Marcus Edmonton, has kidnapped 10 year old Gracie Stockton, the daughter of Harrison Stockton and his ex-wife, Helene Howell. Besides combining the protagonists from the previous two volumes, the kidnapping is for a darker and more serious reason. 

Gracie is the granddaughter of Jay Howell, businessman and multi billionaire. Oh yeah and Howell has another important distinction, a side hustle if you will. He is the creator and founder of the organization behind a certain card that we have been familiar with for the past year.

That's right, Jay Howell is also known to the Readers as Clark Gable, the mysterious and sinister head of the Desire Card. 

J.D.'s demands are simple. He wants the Desire Card disbanded for good. Also, he's not the only one who is after Howell/Gable. 

Harrison has his own unresolved issues with his former father in law. Howell's European rival, Oliver AKA Sir Laurence  Olivier (wow original) wants to cut into the competition. Ambitious and driven, Detective Monica Bonner is overcoming her personal loss by investigating Gracie's kidnapping and some mysterious deaths connected to the card. Gee, it seems like creating an organization that thrives on theft, drug dealing, murder, and other illegal nefarious acts to fulfill other's darkest desires seems like a bad idea since in the end it creates so many enemies who would like to see one dead. Who would have thought?

Even though many things were revealed in the previous volume and this one, there are still enough twists and turns to make Volume Four a good read. In fact, it's better than All Sins Fulfilled because there aren't as many slow parts which bring down the protagonist until they discover the card and start using it. By this point, the Reader knows about the Card, how it's used, and who the players are. The question is what are they going to do as their world comes crashing down around them?

Of course if you are a Narcissistic master criminal like Howell, you are going to do one of two things: scheme against your enemies and get as much as you can or if you go down, you take everyone else with you. Either way, Howell is backed into a corner and is going to strike at his enemies.

His few remaining supporters are like the last survivors on the Titanic still clinging to their Hollywood identities: Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Mae West, and a new James Dean. Many of them are freelancers who stick with Howell for financial gain. Others because they have nowhere else to go. Still others, namely Audrey and Dean, have personal reasons to stick close to their fearless leader. It is a sad pathetic group that remains, not like the far reaching, intimidating, glamorous, and hedonistic Desire Card operatives of the past.

It's also pretty clear that Howell uses these operatives like he uses everyone else. While he does have the capacity to care for certain people and is genuinely worried about Gracie, the narrative makes it clear that he values the Desire Card over everything else. 

Now that Howell's mask has been removed and his true self has been revealed, he is shown to be a self centered despicable creep who would sacrifice anyone to keep his operation running. (Not going to miss this guy once he's gone.)

It is interesting the various ways in which Howell's enemies go through to take him down, never actually combining their resources to fight the common enemy (Maybe that will be saved for Volume Five). Oliver uses his own card connections such as a couple of traitors in Howell's midst and his own operatives like Evchen, his second who assumes the identity of Marlene Dietrich. He fights duplicity with duplicity and strives to be every bit as cunning as his rival.

Monica uses the law and her own detective instincts. Because she also suffered the loss of a child, she relates to the Stocktons even though she is not in their socioeconomic class. She, like Helene, is a grieving mother and wants to relieve Gracie's parents of the burden of loss that she lives with every day. In a series full of criminals, illegal activity, and narcissists galore, Monica Bonner is the lone moral center.

While Harrison is out for the count through most of the book, he and Helene use their family connection and inside knowledge of Howell's home life and what he does when he's not in the mask. In fact, much of the intel is provided by overhearing conversations and searching through private files. It also opens up a lot of development for Helene who was once Daddy's Little Spoiled Pampered Princess and now has to face the truth about her father and where her rich life came from.

J.D.'s course of revenge is by far the strongest and most gripping. He was once a hitman with a heart of gold who walked out on the Desire Card when he began to question their methods. He had a chance to build a decent post-Desire life and then lost it all.

Now in Vicious Ripples, he has become everything that he once despised. A ruthless assassin with no conscience and is willing to hurt innocents to get his needs met. He is the final result of what the Desire Card turns people into: remorseless monsters with nothing left to lose.

Some of J.D.'s best moments are when he is with Gracie. The flickers of conscience still remain as he watches over the girl and tries to explain who her grandfather really is. He also watches in bemusement and horror as Gracie begins to accept her grandfather's identity and even absorbs some of the lessons that the adults around her are teaching. She learns them all too well in some very horrifying scenes that suggest that she too is the final result of the Desire Card's sinister dealings and Howell's insatiable avarice.

As great as this volume is, there are two rather questionable things. In one chapter during a confrontation between Howell and an enemy, something strange, sinister, and almost supernatural happens. It seems to come out of nowhere but perhaps it is an intentional callback to an earlier theory about the Card's origins. (Now with that scene, is the theory back on the table?)

The other question is a missed opportunity, or rather a missing piece to the revenge puzzle. We have seen most of the previous protagonists take on the Desire Card save one, Jake Barnum, the main character in Immoral Origins. While yes his death at the ending of the first volume would mean he can't be there physically, it's upsetting that some plot threads in that book were left dangling and he isn't there in spirit.

Jake's former girlfriend, Desire operative Marilyn Monroe, was alive, well, and remained a Card operative at the end of Immoral Origins. That's the last we hear from her and she makes no reappearance nor is referred to in subsequent volumes. You think that since Jake couldn't be there, at least Marilyn or better yet a potential offspring of theirs, could be there to settle an old score. (Of course I may be getting ahead of myself. Desire's End may answer that question.)

Well, the only thing left is a resolution. It will be interesting to see what happens when Desire's End takes a pair of scissors and finally cuts the card.

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.