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The invisible spy : Churchill's Rockefeller Center spy ring and America's first secret agent of World War II / by Maier, Thomas,1956-author.;
As a tough but smart Italian American kid, Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a City Hall lawyer and "Brain Trust'' aide to President Roosevelt. He was on the payroll of national radio columnist Walter Winchell and mingled with the famous and powerful. But his status as a spy remained a secret, hiding in plain sight. During this time, Cuneo began a love affair with one of Churchill's agents at Rockefeller Center, Margaret Watson, a beautiful Canadian woman with a photographic memory ideal for spycraft. In one nighttime attack, Watson was nearly smothered to death by a Nazi assassin inside her women's dormitory near Rockfeller Center. Cuneo's transformation from a gridiron athlete into a high-stakes intelligence go-between and political influencer is one of the great untold stories of American espionage. He has remained "invisible" in the public eye, until now, with this unveiled look into his life. Thomas Maier weaves Cuneo's remarkable personal story with the vivid and insightful portraits of many top figures in his world. Full of action and fascinating characters, this untold history shows how the British launched a far-ranging covert campaign against Nazi conspirators hidden in America, a spy war unbeknown to many.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965; Cuneo, Ernest L., 1905-1988.; Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945; Winchell, Walter, 1897-1972; Great Britain. MI6; United States. Office of Strategic Services; Espionage, American; Intelligence officers; Spies; Undercover operations; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Greeks bearing gifts / by Kerr, Philip,author.;
Munich, 1956. Bernie Gunther has a new name, a chip on his shoulder, and a dead-end career when an old friend arrives to repay a debt and encourages "Christoph Ganz" to take a job as a claims adjuster in a major German insurance company with a client in Athens, Greece. Under the cover of his new identity, Bernie begins to investigate a claim by Siegfried Witzel, a brutish former Wehrmacht soldier who served in Greece during the war. Witzel's claimed losses are large, and, even worse, they may be the stolen spoils of Greek Jews deported to Auschwitz. But when Bernie tries to confront Witzel, he finds that someone else has gotten to him first, leaving a corpse in his place. Enter Lieutenant Leventis, who recognizes in this case the highly grotesque style of a killer he investigated during the height of the war. Back then, a young Leventis suspected an S.S. officer whose connection to the German government made him untouchable. He's kept that man's name in his memory all these years, waiting for his second chance at justice. Working together, Leventis and Bernie hope to put their cases--new and old--to bed. But there's a much more sinister truth to acknowledge: A killer has returned to Athens ... one who may have never left.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Noir fiction.; Historical fiction.; Gunther, Bernhard (Fictitious character); World War, 1939-1945; Private investigators; Murder;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The children's train : a novel / by Ardone, Viola,1974-author.; Botsford, Clarissa,translator.; translation of:Ardone, Viola,1974-Treno dei bambini.English.;
"Based on true events, a heartbreaking story of love, family, hope, and survival set in post-World War II Italy-written with the heart of Orphan Train and Before We Were Yours-about poor children from the south sent to live with families in the north to survive deprivation and the harsh winters. Though Mussolini and the fascists have been defeated, the war has devastated Italy, especially the south. Seven-year-old Amerigo lives with his mother Antonietta in Naples, surviving on odd jobs and his wits like the rest of the poor in his neighborhood. But one day, Amerigo learns that a train will take him away from the rubble-strewn streets of the city to spend the winter with a family in the north, where he will be safe and have warm clothes and food to eat. Together with thousands of other southern children, Amerigo will cross the entire peninsula to a new life. Through his curious, innocent eyes, we see a nation rising from the ashes of war, reborn. As he comes to enjoy his new surroundings and the possibilities for a better future, Amerigo will make the heartbreaking choice to leave his mother and become a member of his adoptive family. Amerigo's journey is a moving story of memory, indelible bonds, artistry, and self-exploration, and a soaring examination of what family can truly mean. Ultimately Amerigo comes to understand that sometimes we must give up everything, even a mother's love, to find our destiny"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Children; Families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The secrets of flight / by Leffler, Maggie.;
Includes bibliographical references."Estranged from her family since just after World War II, Mary Browning has spent her entire adult life hiding from her Jewish heritage. Now eighty-seven years old and a widow, she is haunted by a lifetime of secrets and fading memories of the family she left behind. Her one outlet is the writing group she's presided over for a decade, but when a new member walks in -- a fifteen year old girl who reminds her so much of her beloved sister Sarah -- Mary is certain fate delivered Elyse Strickler to her for a reason. She hires the serious-eyed teenager to type up her story of a daring female pilot during WWII who gambled everything for her dreams -- and both their lives take flight in unexpected ways. At times laugh-out-loud funny and at others heart-wrenching, this is a story of identity, betrayal, love, hope, and forgiveness"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Jewish women; Storytelling; Women air pilots; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Our narrow hiding places : a novel / by Jansma, Kristopher,author.;
"For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale: an elderly woman recounts her Dutch family's survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations. Eighty-year-old Mieke Geborn's life is one of quiet routine. Widowed for many years, she enjoys the view from her home on the New Jersey shore, visits with friends, and tai chi at the local retirement community. But when her beloved grandson, Will, and his wife, Teru, show up for a visit, things are soon upended. Their marriage is threatening to unravel, and Will has questions for his grandmother-questions about family secrets that have been lost for decades and are now finally rising to the surface. But telling Will the truth involves returning to the past, and to Mieke's childhood in coastal Holland. There, in the last years of World War II, she survived the Hunger Winter, a brutal season when food and heat were cut off and thousands of Dutch citizens starved. Her memories weave together childhood magic and the madness of history, and carry readers from the windy beaches of The Hague to the dark cells of a concentration camp, through the bends of eel-filled rivers, and, finally, to the story of Will's father, absent since Will's childhood. Our Narrow Hiding Places is a sweeping story of survival and of the terrible cost of war-and a reminder that sometimes the traumas we inherit come along with a resilience we never imagined"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Families; Family secrets; Secrecy; Survival; Women; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Halcyon : a novel / by Ackerman, Elliot,author.;
"From the best-selling author and National Book Award finalist, a chilling new novel that reimagines the United States emerging from a different outcome in a pivotal presidential election. Virginia, 2004. Gore is entering his second term as president. Our narrator, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the estate of renowned lawyer and World War II hero Robert Ableson. Ableson died a few years earlier. Or did he? When it becomes clear that scientists, funded by the Gore administration, have found a cure for death, more and more of life's certainties get called into question. Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil? Is Ableson a man outside of time, or is he the product of a new era? How does America's fate hang in the balance? Stretching from Civil War battles to the toppling of Confederate monuments, from scholarly debates to intimate family secrets, Halcyon is a profound and probing novel that grapples with what history means, who is affected by it, and how the complexities of our shared future rest on layers of memory and forgetting"--
Subjects: Alternative histories (Fiction); Political fiction.; Novels.; Immortalism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Once a warrior : how one veteran found a new mission closer to home / by Wood, Jake,1983-author.;
"The powerful story of one Marine who found healing and renewed purpose after returning from combat, for himself and tens of thousands of fellow veterans. When Marine sniper Jake Wood came home in 2009 from grueling tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, his country asked yet more of him: to compartmentalize his traumatic memories, put his elite military training on a shelf, and adjust to living outside high-stakes situations. Jake feared he would join the huge population of veterans struggling to reintegrate. Since 2001, more service members have died by suicide than have been killed in Afghanistan. One activity helped Jake and his friend and fellow Marine Clay Hunt find a measure of hope: helping communities after disasters, where their training rendered them unusually effective in high-stakes situations. But as their new organization struggled to get off the ground and the VA tied up Clay's meds in red tape, Clay committed suicide. Reeling, Jake resolved to help as many disaster-affected communities and provide a mission to as many veterans as possible. Over the past 10 years, with no money or experience, he and his team have recruited over 100,000 volunteers to his organization Team Rubicon. It's established a reputation for delivering desperately needed aid faster and better than other organizations hindered by bureaucracy. Racing against the clock, veteran volunteers utilize their military training to untangle complex problems quickly and keep calm under pressure in catastrophic scenarios. What's more, Team Rubicon gives meaningful direction to men and women who need the disaster response work as much as the work needs them. Having a continued purpose--a mission that matters--can be the key to a veteran's successful transition from war to peace"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Wood, Jake, 1983-; United States. Marine Corps; United States. Marine Corps. Marine Regiment, 7th. Battalion, 2nd.; Team Rubicon (Organization); Afghan War, 2001-; Disaster relief.; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Marines; Philanthropists; Veterans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Chastise : the Dambusters story 1943 / by Hastings, Max,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.A brand new history of the Dambusters raid from best-selling and critically acclaimed military historian, Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in northwest Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron on the night of 16/17 May 1943, was an epic that has passed into Britain's national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who led the raid. In the 21st Century, however, he urges that we should see the dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew's heroism was entirely real, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, inventor of the ‘bouncing bombs'. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised as ruthlessly as they did about the entire bomber offensive. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Mohne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. He argues that what modern Germans call the Mohnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber' Harris gained much of the public credit, though he bitterly opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. Harris also made perhaps the operation's biggest mistake-- failure to launch a conventional attack on the huge post-raid repair operation which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches on Ruhr industry. Here once again is a dramatic retake on familiar history by a master of the art. Hastings sets the Dams Raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history.
Subjects: Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Squadron, 617; Dams; Operation Chastise, 1943.; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Wedding the widow / by Jaxon, Jenna.;
Of all the widows of Lyttlefield Park, Elizabeth Easton seems least likely to remarry. Though many gentlemen would love to get to know the charming Mrs. Easton better, she is devoted to the memory of her late husband. Which is why she's so shocked to be overtaken by passion during a harvest festival, succumbing to an unforgettable interlude with the handsome Lord Brack... After enduring years of war, Jemmy, Lord Brack, plans to defer matrimony in favor of carefree pleasure. But who could resist a lifetime with Elizabeth Easton, a woman as marvelously sensual as she is sweet? Yet despite their mutual desire, she refuses to consider his proposal. With scandal looming, and their families bitterly opposed to the match, Jemmy must find a way to convince Elizabeth to risk her wary heart on him--and turn one infamous night into forever...
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Historical fiction.; Man-woman relationships; Widows;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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O sinners! : a novel / by Cuffy, Nicole,author.;
"Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist reeling from the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed in a cult called The Nameless. Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War-veteran named Odo, The Nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as "THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE NAMELESS," "ALL SUFFERING IS DISTORTION," and "SEE ONLY BEAUTY." Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of The Nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult's inner workings, compassionate teachings, and closer to Odo. Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come-to-terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo's spell. Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads between Faruq's present-day investigation, Odo's time before the formation of the movement as a Black infantryman during the Vietnam War, alongside three other Black soldiers, and a documentary script that recounts The Nameless' clash with a Texan fundamentalist church, O SINNERS! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel asks: What is it that we seek from cults and, inevitably, from each other?"--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Belonging (Social psychology); Cults; Journalists; Veterans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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