Stardust

When Daniel Kohler is fatally injured in a fall in 1945, his brother Ben is just arriving in Hollywood to make a film for the Army documenting the death camps. This is a subject close to home as Ben served in Europe at the close of the war. As he investigates the circumstances surrounding Daniel's death and works on his movie, the two are related in ways he never imagined. Mr. Kanon deftly weaves a number of stories into the whole--a small group of ex-pat intellectuals under FBI scrutiny, a camp survivor transplanted to the home of a film mogul, the subterfuge required for alternative lifestyles, tabloid journalism, being Jewish in post WWII America and the studio star system. This beautifully written book is sprinkled with real and fictional characters based on real ones and this world is skillfully evoked. As Ben navigates the maze of clues leading to the truth about his brother, his path is made murkier by complex relationships, loyalties and lies. Stardust is a literary thriller of the highest quality. Thought provoking and entertaining at the same time, it's a brilliant commentary on illusion and truth and what patriotism means.

It's post-World War II, and Ben Collier, on leave from the U.S. Army Signal Corp in Germany, has come to Los Angeles. His brother Danny, a director there, has fallen from a balcony and is now in a coma and near death. Danny dies soon after Ben's arrival, almost immediately after Danny awakens to beg Ben not to leave him. Ben discovers that this was not an accident and not attempted suicide. Danny was somehow involved in the beginnings of the "witch hunt" for Communists in Hollywood, and someone wanted him dead. Now Ben tries to be Danny and hunt for Communists, hoping he will learn who murdered him . At the same time, Ben is putting together a documentary. He wants the world to see what had been going on in the concentration camps during World War II. He has convinced an owner of one of the Hollywood movie studios to provide him with what the Army could not so he can produce this. Therefore, he is intimately involved with the goings on at the studio and with the people who worked with Danny there. Joseph Kanon, who has written four previous novels of historical fiction (THE GOOD GERMAN, LOS ALAMOS, THE PRODIGAL SPY, and ALIBI), once again presents historical fiction as thriller/mystery. So this book is action packed and hard to put down while the reader learns about this historical period. And once again I give Kanon's novel an A.

In his latest book, Stardust, Joe Kanon, the master of the historical thriller, adds a new chord to his work, transcending the genre and creating a compelling and exciting human drama. Stardust explores how people cope with love and loss; success and failure; the past and the future in the glamorous yet dangerous and morally ambiguous world of 1945 Hollywood. German emigres, movie stars, and studio heads are all implicated in a mysterious death that involves the world war just ended and the cold war just beginning; and, like the movies themselves, it's hard to know what's real and what isn't. Joe Kanon's craftsmanship as a writer, his historical knowledge of this unique time and place, and his compassion for and understanding of good people caught in bad times, makes Stardust one of the best books of the year.

This is superb historical fiction, i.e. fiction with strong historical elements. It is 1945 and a soldier is working with Hollywood on a film depicting the realities of the holocaust. His brother has just died under mysterious circumstances and he is determined to discover the truths surrounding his death. He meets his brother's widow and falls in love with her. He meets the studio head with whom he is to work on his picture and helps to save his life. And he meets the studio head's fixer, a former child star. And the panoply of individuals from the community of German émigrés, among them Brecht, Mann and Mahler's handsome widow. He meets Paulette Goddard and, finally, he finds himself amid a web of communist spies, gossip columnists, congressional redbaiting opportunists and an array of the latters' victims. The novel has traditionally carried epic possibilities. Here, Kanon works to exploit them, capturing a time and place, while altering them in a way that could only happen in film. And that is the book's lesson. There are some great set pieces in the book--the confrontation between the brave (fictional) studio head and redbaiting congressman, the cat-and-mouse protagonist/murderer confrontation on a darkened sound stage, the painful, bittersweet conclusion. The book carries the overtones of the great films of this era and purposely evokes the ethos of a Graham Greene narrative. Heady stuff. Beautifully executed and very, very memorable. Don't miss it.

Nobody wants to see war films after the war. Ben Collier, son of Otto Kohler, is in the Signal Corps. and has films of the camps. His father made films in Germany. Sol Lasner, Hollywood mogul, had known the father. In the early postwar period people traveled by train, Hollywood included. Lasner, meeting Ben on the train, wants to keep his heart condition a secret and solicits Ben's help. Movies moved to California for the sun. Everything was shot outdoors. Arriving at his destination, Ben learns that his brother has jumped out of a window and is in a coma. The novel has real people in it-- Alma Mahler, Salka Viertal, the Warners, Paulette Goddard, Ann Sheridan, Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Mann, Greer Garson. Ben's brother's action is a mystery. The films of Otto Kohler are in a collection at his brother Danny's place. Danny dies following a brief period of consciousness. Daniel had taken people over the Pyrenees to escape Hitler. The funeral is attended mostly by Germans. In Hollywood there are union issues. Ben comes to believe that the death is a homicide. It is discovered that Ben's father used Danny to guide his fellow party members to freedom. Someone who has survived the camps tells Ben his father was killed as a Communist, not as a Jew. Ben's source says it was she who fingered his father. So, this book is nearly genre fiction, and very good at that. It is just after the war and Hollywood is filled with displaced Europeans. The Holocaust has taken place and the division of Germany is to follow soon. Hollywood itself is to be subject to investigation by congressional committees. In a highly competitive environment, politics is to intrude. Fortunately, for the sake of the story, exiles display fast hospitality. Too, Hollywood is an interesting place about which to read. Ben (Reuben) Collier (Kohler) functions as both an everyman and as an investigator into the past, Ben having been separated from both his father and brother through marital discord in the family. This is something like a LeCarre product, except that it is historical fiction. The writing is very sharp, competent. The story is exciting, well-executed. In some respects Joseph Kannon resembles Dashiell Hammett in knowing that corruption, untangled, falls back on itself.