Morrow, May 2002, 24.95, 304 pp.
ISBN 0060197706
Peter and Lily Simon have been happily married for seventeen years. Although both were born in France, they met in England where he served during World War II as an army air officer and she worked at the nearby Free French headquarters. They have been living the American dream for years but it becomes a nightmare in 1963 when Lily's father knocks on the door.
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Lily told Pete when they first met that her father died at the hands of the Germans. When Lily closes the door on her father without giving him a chance to speak to her, Pete demands explanations that Lily refuses to give. When her father is murdered, Lily disappears and Pete travels to Barcelona then to Veaudry, France where he learns what Lily has spent so many years trying to hide. After almost getting killed, Pete is finally able to find his wife only to have her kidnapped by professionals for hire.
TURNCOAT is a fascinating thriller but it is also a family drama about a woman tortured by her past and the man who loves her so much that he wants to break the chain that bind her to a world that no longer exists except in memory. Aaron Elkins is a gifted storyteller and readers will come away from his latest endeavor wanting to read his previous works.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
