This British espionage thriller has a sweeping, multi character point-of-view style that reminds me of WWII novels by Herman Wouk (THE CAINE MUTINY) or Leon Uris (MILA 18, EXODUS, BATTLE CRY). Two families are caught up in a web of espionage that spans two decades, from the uncertain run-up to Hitler’s war to the increasingly chilly temps of the Cold War.
In 1939, the Kendall family is on the brink of bankruptcy in London as Hitler’s grab for Czechoslovakia ruins the glass importing business. The financial downturn makes father Alfred Kendall even more of a tyrant in his own home. He’s particularly harsh with his youngest son, 12-year-old Hugh.
Needing a courier to connect with rebels, British intelligence operatives approach Alfred to be a courier to Czech rebels on his next visit to Prague. Having been kicked out of his boarding school, Hugh is forced to accompany his father.
Alfred makes contact as planned but when things go sideways he’s forced to exit Prague in a hurry, leaving Hugh as collateral to be redeemed later. But Alfred doesn’t come back.
Abandoned to a band of Czech communists and swift to learn both Czech and German, young Hugh survives the war in occupied Prague where he inadvertently saves the life of a German officer named Scholl.
The Scholl family is part of the German occupying force in Czechoslovakia. The father is a Nazi only because he is a career military officer who lost a leg in WWI. Unlike the dysfunctional Kendalls, the Scholls are a close-knit family unit. Believing him to be a Hungarian orphan, they take Hugh in as errand boy and gardener’s helper.
Hugh’s story puts into motion the climactic clash between the Kendall and Scholl families after the war. Manipulated by espionage actors on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the two families face an ultimate showdown which plays out during the Suez crisis, as does the love story between Hugh and Scholl’s daughter Magda.
If you love big WWII wartime sagas, this is for you.
And the title? Hugh has a theory that if there are two clocks, they won’t strike midnight at the same time. Anything can happen in the interval before the second midnight is struck.
Highly recommended.
