Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal

It's unfortunate that a novel this remarkable is billed as a children's book. There's nothing juvenile about it. The plot is complex, compelling and quite adult. Historical fiction at its best!

I became fully absorbed. This is a beautifully written book with amazing characters,twists and emotion. I couldn't put it down. I've recommended it to all of my friends. Haunting.

At times, you may feel like you know where the story is headed only to find yourself far from where you expected. The novel switches from different tenses: the past, present, not too long ago past, etc. but only in a manner of sequence that is evident towards the end. Time seems to go in drags and lurches but altogether ties up nicely. The book also has such realistic and historical accuracy blended into a web of fiction that makes this book such a great read. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Tamar and Dart are spies who parachute into Nazi-occupied Netherlands during the "Hunger Winter" of 1944. Tamar's mission is to convince Dutch resistance groups to unify under the authority of the British government. Dart is his wireless operator, at a time when a WO's life expectancy in the field is just a few months. Tamar is undercover as a farm laborer sent home from Nazi work camps due to broken health. Dart is disguised as a doctor in residence at a sanatorium. They communicate only with the help of local resistance members, any of whom could be Nazi spies. Very little information is given about the characters beyond their duties as spies. Both are Dutch, but it is never revealed how they came to be recruited by the British or what their lives were like before they were spies. It is almost as though their choice to become spies has erased all other sense of identity. They have no past and no future beyond their present mission, even as personal feelings begin to color their relationships to one another and the organization they serve. Approximately 50 years later, a teen girl, also named Tamar, inherits a mysterious box from her grandfather. She and her cousin Yoyo take a trip into the British countryside seeking the origins of the Tamar river and the answer to a family secret that has remained hidden for generations. The two stories dovetail in a compelling novel about the legacy of a world at war, binding people across borders and generations. World War II happened so long ago that it is beginning to pass from memory into history. The world of TAMAR's spies is so different from our own that it might as well be an imaginary world. The secret hiding places, archaic communications like Morse code, and extreme precautions like cyanide pills add to a sense of a vanished and exotic world. It is also a period that has been fetishized over the years by many fictional portrayals. Instead of making history seem more immediate, the many movies and novels about the period can serve to make it seem less real, more a Hollywood invention than actual events impacting the lives of millions. Nazis have become stock characters, as recognizable in their uniforms with stiff marching and salutes as the villain in swirling cape and twirling mustache was in melodramas long ago. It would be easy to write another novel about the atrocities of the war without adding anything new to the literature. Mal Peet avoids cliche through his vividly detailed recreation of The Netherlands in the winter of 1944. He writes about a population being starved into submission by their Nazi occupiers, forcing "hunger trippers" to walk miles into the country in search of food. He writes about silken code sheets that can be packed into a tiny capsule and swallowed in case of capture, and about wireless operators on amphetamines trying to stay alert through stifling boredom and constant fear. Best of all, the author refuses to oversimplify the conflict into good vs. evil. Most

I inhaled this. It was very difficult to put down, and it is 424 pages. In 1995, 15 year old Tamar's grandfather's suicide bewilders her, as does the bewildering collection of things that he has left her in his apartment. There is a mystery, she knows, and her grandfather loved puzzles, as does she. Her father, his son, has disappeared, and she talks a distant relative into helping her solve the mystery--which is related to the other part of the story, that of two undercover operatives who parachute into the Nazi-occupied Netherlands late in 1944 and encounter both the starving winter and an array of plots, relationships and dangers. A compelling story, this sticks with you.