Review: Germania by Brendan McNally

Flensburg also provides a remarkable cast of desperate, real-life characters. Several scrambled to escape arrest for their war crimes. But simultaneously -- even bizarrely -- they also hoped to be proclaimed supreme leader of post-war Europe. One of these would-be leaders was Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and armaments expert. Another was Heinrich Himmler.

That's right. The head of the SS actually believed the Allies wanted him to run Europe. Of course, Himmler was also daffy enough to use his massage therapist to try to arrange a peace treaty with Sweden.

All of this is completely true. But as dangerous and farcical as the Flensburg period was, McNally chooses to tell the story by inventing a vaudeville troupe of comic juggler-singer-gymnasts.

The Flying Magical Loerber Brothers. Before the war, they were beloved entertainers. But they're secretly Jewish. And they disappoint their fans by mysteriously disappearing. It's only in these last weeks as Germany falls into chaos that the four Loerbers pop back up in very different roles.

This is author Brendan McNally reading an excerpt from Germania:

MCNALLY: "Speer tried to remember what he could about the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers. Like everyone else, he'd seen them perform many times. Still, Speer had been largely bewildered by the Loerber brothers mania. He remembered all the photo and variety magazine covers. Some trademarked picture of their four identical faces arranged like a crescent moon. Which one is your favorite, it always asked. Which to Speer didn't make any sense because they were all indistinguishable from each other. It was like having a favorite corner of a square building."

The Loerber brothers are a quirky, sometimes jarring device for telling the Flensburg story. But they do lead to some marvelous, fictional moments - like when one Loerber teaches Albert Speer how to juggle.

It's when McNally throws in psychic powers that things get out of hand. And get unnecessary. As I said, the Flensburg story is woolly enough as it is. No need for Germania to fall off the trapeze and land in the world of Marvel Comics.

But I confess that Germania - like Will Clarke's Lord Vishnu - can hold your interest.The tonal shifts are distracting, but the books are highly readable. I read them to the end wondering -- what's coming next?

Both Will Clarke and Brendan McNally wrote these thrillers while hanging out in local Starbucks. So perhaps there's something in the coffee they serve around here.

An audio version of this review can be found with the review on Artandseek.org