HITLER’S ANGEL

Kris Rusch, a well-known and respected science-fiction author, here ventures into historical fiction, larded with pop psychology. Through flashbacks and risky changes in tense, she tells the story of the murder of Adolf Hitler's niece, Geli Raubal, and why the lead detective on the case failed. This is a novel of almost unrelieved gloom exacerbated by the glacial pace that reader Susan O'Malley adopts. While she articulates German names and places well, O'Malley scarcely distinguishes the characters at all. Most important, she moves from one scene to another with a numbing deliberateness no matter what is happening in the story. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]