It is March 1942, and an elite group of Norwegian resistance
fighters along with the SOE -- the Special Operation
Executive, a very hush-hush division of the British Secret
Services -- is to combine their efforts to stop the Nazis
from winning the race to the atom bomb. Norway is the
premier producer of heavy water, and the plant at Vemork has
the capacity to manufacture the quantity the Nazis need to
make the bomb, and Hitler would win the war.
Outside of Norway, little is known about this important act
of sabotage and the Norwegian resistance, whose contribution
to the WWII effort remains largely unsung. While I was aware
of the particular events related in THE SABOTEUR, I did not
know the particulars, and even though this book is a
fictionalized account of this daring mission, Andrew Gross
sticks mostly to the facts and THE SABOTEUR can be viewed as
a painless way to learn about a turning point in modern
history. Mr. Gross does an outstanding job of weaving what
must have been an inordinate amount of research into a
cohesive and nail-biting story, where danger lurks at every
corner be it in the form of the Gestapo, the local
collaborators, or the harsh Norwegian landscape and weather
where the heavy water plant is located. The author based the
fictional Kurt Nordstrum on Kurt Haukelid's account of the
actual story, among other sources.
The nearly impossible mission is extensively detailed, and
far from being boring, every detail is enlightening and
enthralling as the men, who numbered fewer than a dozen,
risk their lives to thwart the enemy's plan. Ms. Gross
writing is unadorned, as befitting the narrative, but still
very eloquent as every nerve-racking moment is brought to
life. I found interesting that, although THE SABOTEUR is a
work of fiction, Mr. Gross chose to preserve the real names
of most of the featured players, thereby honoring the
heroes' memories. There was one character I suspected was
fictional from the start, and I felt this was a bit
self-indulgent from the part of the author as this detracted
from a real hero's accomplishment; on the other hand, two
fictional characters that appear towards the end were a
lovely addition as I felt it added a touch of whimsy to a
trivial news item. I commend Andrew Gross for crafting an
exciting thriller while taking nary a historical liberty,
and I can hardly wait to see what the immensely talented
Andrew Gross has in store for us in the future.
Based on the stirring true story, The Saboteur is
Andrew Gross’s follow-up to the riveting historical
thriller, The One Man. A richly-woven story probing
the limits of heroism, sacrifice and determination, The
Saboteur portrays a hero who must weigh duty against his
heart in order to single-handedly end the one threat that
could alter the course of World War II.
February, 1943. Both the Allies and the Nazis are closing
in on attempts to construct the decisive weapon of the war.
Kurt Nordstrum, an engineer in Oslo, puts his life aside to
take up arms against the Germans as part of the Norwegian
resistance. After the loss of his fiancée, his outfit
whittled to shreds, he commandeers a coastal steamer and
escapes to England to transmit secret evidence of the
Nazis’s progress towards an atomic bomb at an isolated
factory in Norway. There, he joins a team of dedicated
Norwegians in training in the Scottish Highlands for a
mission to disrupt the Nazis’ plans before they advance any
further.
Parachuted onto the most unforgiving terrain in Europe,
braving the fiercest of mountain storms, Nordstrum and his
team attempt the most daring raid of the war, targeting the
heavily-guarded factory built on a shelf of rock thought to
be impregnable, a mission even they know they likely will
not survive. Months later, Nordstrum is called upon again to
do the impossible, opposed by both elite Nazi soldiers and a
long-standing enemy who is now a local collaborator—one man
against overwhelming odds, with the fate of the war in the
balance, but the choice to act means putting the one person
he has a chance to love in peril.
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