A complex and ambitious thriller

• Book: The Exile
• Location: Spain
• Author: Mark Oldfield

Review Author: tripfiction

The Exile is a complex and ambitious thriller. It covers the time immediately following WW2 in Europe as it heads into the Cold War era. Greta is a Lithuanian freedom fighter par excellence. She has helped drive the German army out of her country and is now fighting the Russian advance into Eastern Europe. But her activities are disrupted when Laima, a leader of the Lithuanian resistance, orders Greta to head to France to locate and rescue her daughter, Morta, who had been set into exile (for her own good) earlier in the war. Laima has reason to believe that all is not well with Morta.

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Greta is smuggled by boat into Germany and then on to Paris to begin her mission. Paris, and the rest of France, is in a state of chaos, intrigue, and confusion. There are simple criminal gangs, there is the Corsican mafia moving up from its stronghold in Marseilles, there are the police powerless or unwilling to stop them, and there are the corrupt politicians and the increasingly bold communist sympathisers. Secret files of the Gestapo’s time in Paris are discovered, and many seemingly respectable people are threatened for being collaborators. Brave and resourceful as Greta is, she is in danger of being out of her depth. She makes mistakes in whom she trusts and in whom she confides. She develops contacts in the higher eschelons of the mafia and criminal gangs. All the time, of course, she is working to track down Morta.

Greta’s life is threatened as she makes progress to rescue Morta. There is much violence.

As I said at the beginning, The Exile is a complex book with many a sub plot. It is, at times, difficult to keep with everything that is going on. But it is worth it.

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