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Six Graves to Munich by Mario Puzo (view source)
Revision as of 17:37, 6 June 2010
, 17:37, 6 June 2010no edit summary
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There are, though, ways of finding out such things and Rogan, by now a wealthy man, began to extract his vengeance. By a quirk of fate he met a woman, herself deeply damaged by what had happened to her during the war, but can the thoughts of vengeance be put aside so that they can build a life? Or is Rogan driven by compulsion and obsession to the point where he must kill these seven men regardless of everything else?
It's a superb story, written just a year before Puzo's most famous book ''The Godfather'', but there are all the hallmarks there of a master story-teller at work. There's even a Mafia don in there who has some very revealing comments to make. It's a relatively slim volume but it wasn't size that meant I got through it in a single sitting but the fact that it's a real page-turner. I didn't warm to Michael Rogan but my heart went out to Rosalie for whom Rogan was the love of her life. She supports him in his need for revenge despite the fact that she would prefer that he let matters be.
The story is dark and in places it is violent but never gratuitously so. The most surprising part for me was the portrayal of the seven men who tortured Rogan and his wife. Some were animals then and are animals now but there are others who have a conscience who would prefer that they could forget what happened and who have led blameless lives in the decade since the end of the war. There's also the implication that many men would have done what they did if they felt that it would help their country. It's insightful and thought-provoking.