A City of Broken Glass is the fourth in the “Hannah Vogel” series of books by Rebecca Cantrell. This is the story of Hannah, who has many aliases, who is trying to get out of pre-war Berlin, along with her son. She is on the Gestapo’s list as a spy. She is an investigative reporter for a newspaper in Switzerland who was sent to do a story on a saint’s celebration in Zbaszyn, Poland. She stumbles upon the deportation of German Jews to Poland and tries to help find a little girl who was left behind. She is kidnapped by Gestapo and transported back into Berlin where her life is in great danger. She escapes her captors and the story continues as she tries to get her son, herself and her SS contact out of Berlin before the Gestapo catch up with her. The ending takes place during Kristallnacht which is considered the beginning of the Holocaust by some. I was so enthralled with this story that I couldn’t stop reading until I was finished. I was kept on the edge of my seat by the danger always lurking around the corner as I devoured this story. I wish that I had read the first three novels before this one. I don’t think it will diminish my enjoyment of those because I read this last one first if the plot of those novels is as deep as this book. I congratulate Rebecca Cantrell for providing a historical novel that keeps mostly true to events as they happened during that hellish time in Berlin. I heartily recommend this book to anyone, especially those who enjoy looking back to that time in history.

I received this e-book for free from the publisher for this review.
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In Rebecca Cantrell's Hannah Vogel series, Hannah is a Berlin reporter in the 1930s who runs into trouble--a lot of trouble--with a variety of Nazi brownshirts and members of the regime, and ends up having to leave for Germany for Switzerland and live under an alias. In this fourth book in the Hannah Vogel series, it's late 1938 and Hannah is on a reporting assignment to Poland from her Swiss newspaper. She's supposed to cover a local festival and has brought her 13-year-old adopted son, Anton, along. Hannah drops her festival assignment when she learns that thousands of Jews of Polish heritage have been violently driven from Germany by the Nazis and are being held by Polish authorities in barns and factory buildings, with little food and no facilities.

A risky phone call back to Berlin on behalf of one of the victims leads to Hannah's arrest by the Gestapo and transport in a car trunk back over the border to Germany. Rescued by her old lover, Lars, she and Anton must hide out in Berlin until they can plan an escape from this country where they will be in grave danger if discovered. Despite the risk, Hannah can't resist investigating the case of a missing child, a murder, and the mystery of who betrayed her to the Gestapo.

It's a challenge to review this book in a way that will be helpful to potential readers, because this series has two very different potential audiences. One audience is readers who enjoy romantic mysteries, or at least mysteries with a strong focus on the protagonist's personal life and concerns. If you're in this category, I think you'll like this book. And, if you've enjoyed previous books in the Hannah Vogel series, I feel certain it will appeal to you. It's the best in the series since the first book, A Trace of Smoke.

The second potential audience is readers who seek out mysteries, thrillers and espionage books dealing with the Nazi and World War II eras. This group may well be less than enthusiastic about the book. I'll tell you why, but first a little background.

The historical events that this story is built around begin with the mass deportation of Polish Jews from Germany in October, 1938. The "aktion" was sudden and violent, leaving 12,000 Jews stranded in the town of Zbaszyn, population about 6,000. One family, the Grynszpans, had a son, Herschel, then living in Paris. When Herschel received a postcard from his sister describing the family's treatment, he was so frustrated and furious that he went to the German embassy in Paris and shot Ernst vom Rath, a member of the diplomatic staff. (Reportedly, vom Rath was actually a bit of a Nazi critic and was under Gestapo investigation at the time of the shooting.) Two days later, vom Rath died. Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels used the death as a pretext to invite attacks on Germany's Jews by announcing that "spontaneous demonstrations" against the Jewish community would not be interfered with. This set off the orgy of violence since known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

The book begins with Hannah interviewing deportees in Zbaszyn and ends with the dramatic resolution of her investigations as the horrifying violence of Kristallnacht begins. These bookends of the story are well done and historically accurate (except that, as author Cantrell is quick to point out, she leaves more time between the mass deportation and Kristallnacht than there was in actuality). Though Cantrell is known for her thorough research and evocative period atmosphere, in this book the history she actually presents is Wikipedia-level stuff. Anyone who regularly reads Nazi-era history or fiction will find no new facts or insights here and may find that disappointing.

The story between the two historical events that begin and end the book is a place where the two potential reader audiences may part ways. While Hannah investigates, she has plenty of time to devote to her troubled relationship with Lars and learn what he has been doing in the two years since they parted. It's an interesting enough story, and their troubled romance is well presented. This will be satisfying to that first type of potential audience. For those who prefer history to the personal, though, the emphasis on the Hannah/Lars relationship may just feel like unnecessary filler. Some may even find a romance story incongruous when the historical setting is so serious.

Note: I received a free review copy of this book. ( )

In Cantrell’s soon to be published mystery, A City of Broken Glass, Hannah Vogel has gone to Poland in 1938 with her adopted son Anton to write a fluff article on festival pastries for a Swiss newspaper. That should send shivers into anyone familiar with Cantrell’s Hannah. She doesn’t write fluff and in 1938 even Poland isn’t as safe as Hannah has assumed. Almost immediately she goes in pursuit of a different story and discovers Jewish refugees rounded up by the Germans and dumped into Poland in cold barns with no food or medical care. Among the starving women lies Miriam, the pregnant wife of Hannah’s old lover Paul, and she’s in labor. When Hannah returns with a doctor, Miriam is suspiciously dead and the woman who was with her has disappeared. Unfortunately for Hannah, this tragedy is only a hint of the real danger lurking nearby. Soon she’s trapped in Berlin against her will with a surprising old ally and to her especial horror, her son Anton. How to get her son and herself safely out of Berlin? In addition, because she’s Hannah, how to help the various people whose needs cry out to her even while she herself is in dire peril?

Cantrell always succeeds in creating nail-biting suspense while building a thematically rich story. Hannah criticizes herself for not having done more to stop the Nazis in the past when she feels she could have. Her self-recriminations are unfair as the reader knows, but her thoughts underscore a central idea of this book—each person faced with great evil has a choice either to protect the vulnerable at the cost of his or her own safety or to turn away. One of the subtle measures of this theme in A City of Broken Glass is the response of those who love Hannah when she chooses to fight for the innocent. If a character would prefer for Hannah to stay safe but nonetheless lets her go forward and assists her, in each case that character is the one to trust and value. Love, in Cantrell’s book, is measured in the harsh crucible of standing up to the Nazis. If the person you love refuses to let you endanger your life and instead wishes you to take the cowardly way, perhaps they do not love you enough. That’s a tough theme in a tough period of history. Cantrell’s heroes have to love even into the maw of death. Combined with Cantrells’ vivid portrayal of place and time, such soul-searing action and character development makes for an amazing read, which will feed your heart and soul as well as entertain you. ( )

Hannah Vogel, journalist and spy finds herself back in Berlin, a Berlin in which she barely escaped from and is now wanted by the Gestapo. This novel also brings back tow man who had been important in her life. Shortly Kristallnacht, Hannah tries to find a missing Jewish child in Berlin and once again finds herself immersed in the Nazi crackdown of the Jews. Hannah is a very interesting character and this is a good thriller but it had a little too much relationship angst in this one, would have been more interesting at least for me had a little less time been spent on that, but I suppose it was the author's way of updating readers who have not read the whole series. Do love that she includes at the end of the book the characters and events that actually happened which helps give the reader a more intense and factual look at the times. All in all a good thriller. ARC from NetGalley. ( )

Hannah and her son have been sent to Poland to cover the St. Martin festival. Once arriving, she learns that twelve thousand Polish Jews have been deported from Germany. The deportees are being housed in horrible conditions with little food, water or medical attention. She finds an old acquaintance housed in a stable, nine months pregnant. Her friend confides in her that she left her two year old daughter behind in Berlin, locked in a cabinet.

When I started this book, I didn't realize that it was the fourth book in a series. The beginning works very well as a stand-alone, but as the plot unraveled I realized that I was missing a lot of information. I am interested in reading the first three books in the series. The writing was very well done, the characters interesting and the plot well developed. Overall, I highly enjoyed. ( )