The bifurcated Wilderness is both a schieber and an MI6 officer. His emotional constipation notwithstanding, he learned lessons that made him a perfect recruit for Burne-Jones, an upper-class British MI6 intelligence officer.įollowing the post-war division of Germany, Wilderness and his cohorts make money on the black market - their second job - by lifting cases of peanut butter, vodka, wine, or cigarettes from the PX or other sources. ![]() Essentially abandoned by his abusive father and schooled in the arts of patter and thievery by his grandfather and partner, Wilderness learned from a broken wartime system how to scavenge, profit, and survive. Wilderness’ mother died in the bombing of London when he was 13. By contrast, I found the 215 chapters of flashbacks and updates in Hammer to Fall to be somewhat disruptive while some are integral vignettes, others are gratuitous. The narrator provides deep color, if not ironic humor, while adding dimension to multiple plotlines over many chapters. I love the Wilderness of Then We Take Berlin and The Unfortunate Englishman. This third installment in author John Lawton’s Joe Wilderness series spans the WWII rubble of 1941 London through the Soviet threat in Cold War Europe. Such is the hall of mirrors in the double life of John Holderness, aka Joe Wilderness, in Hammer to Fall. ![]() “A good schieber survived by being able to know when he was being lied to while lying himself.”
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