The knight, death, and the devil /

This biographical novel portrays Nazi leader Hermann Goring's contradictory shift from sentimentalist and romantic patriot to military and political strategist, commander of the Luftwaffe and creator of the Gestapo. ``Although Goring remains essentially an enigmatic and unappealing character, the growth of his complicity in his country's moral depravity makes absorbing reading,'' said PW. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A work of honesty and passion, this historical novel is an eminently readable depiction of Hermann Goring, head of the Luftwaffe and backbone of the Nazi party. Goring was a man both pitiable and conniving; loving toward his children yet an able assassin; unparalleled as an art thief; decadent to the point of effeminacy in his plush robes; drug-addicted; suspicious of Himmler and Goebbels; and in need of his Fuhrer's favor and of his country's triumph, yet perhaps not defeated without them. Leffland's saga deftly captures not only the historical antecedents that made Germany central to 20th-century history but some of those the Nazi juggernaut crushed on the way. The historical aspect is occasionally a little lumpy, but the insights of a fine novelist--from the depiction in human terms of Nazi squabbles to the gassing of a disabled person--more than redress the balance. A lousy title but thoroughly recommended.-- Peter Bricklebank, City Coll., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A long (720-page), chilling biographical novel featuring Nazi Germany's infamous Hermann Goring, by the author of Rumors of Peace (1979) and Last Courtesies and Other Stories (1980). Leffland's formidable talents as a fiction writer enhance this thoroughly researched portrait of the marshal of the Third Reich, shedding the sharpest possible light on this paradoxical character and his times. Abandoned to distant relatives from infancy until age three, Goring went on to spend a glorious childhood in an ancient castle maintained by his mother's lover, an aristocratic Jew. Rejecting his weak-willed father and adopting the castle's historical roots as his own, Goring grew up reckless and handsome, a natural warrior who signed up as a flying ace during WW I. After the war Goring soon attached himself to would-be revolutionary Adolf Hitler, finding himself instinctively drawn to the provincial little man's uncanny power as a speaker. As Hitler's right-hand man throughout the rise of the Nazi Party and WW II, Goring was adored as Germany's quintessential Siegfried with his hearty appetite, his love of the hunt, and his deeply romantic soul. Goring's descent into obesity, addiction to morphine and a life of suffocating ritual is detailed with a sure and perceptive vision. Leffland wisely avoids sensationalism as she conveys the Nazi leaders' ability matter-of-factly to order the murder of six million Jews while remaining much more engrossed in their passionate bids for the Fuhrer's favor and in various romantic intrigues. Set against a background of such horrifying haute-bourgeois banality, the suicide scenes in Hitler's bunker and in Goring's prison cell stand out in lurid detail, leaving the reader shocked and, finally, mercifully released. Undeniably overlong, but a memorable, remarkable achievement, nonetheless. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.