Central Skagit Library District

Targeted by McCarthyism for his prewar politics, a young Jewish writer who fled the Nazis to America makes a desperate bargain with a fledgling CIA to work as a spy in a decimated Berlin. "From the bestselling author of Istanbul Passage--called a "fast-moving thinking man's thriller" by The Wall Street Journal--comes a sweeping, atmospheric novel of postwar East Berlin, a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation....

"Abandoned by her parents, Olga is raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, endearing but uncompromising, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees women as second-best. When Olga falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with gaining all the power, glory and greatness the modern age can provide, her life is irremediably changed....

"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six,...

"September 1938. Hitler is determined to invade Czechoslovakia. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, is desperate to avoid what would certainly be the war following such a move. The city of Munich, Germany, is to be the site of an eleventh-hour meeting between them--a last desperate effort to preserve an already precarious peace. Aboard the plane flying Chamberlain to the meeting is Hugh Legat, a rising star of the British diplomatic corps,...

Sir Stafford Nye's flight home from Malaya takes an unprecedented twist when a young woman confides in him that someone is trying to kill her. In a moment of weakness, he agrees to lend her his passport. Unwittingly, the diplomat has put his own life on the line. When he meets the mystery woman again, she is a different person, and he finds himself drawn into a battle against an invisible?and altogether more dangerous?enemy. . . .

"Set against the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963... [this] is a harrowing yet ultimately uplifting coming-of-age story about a young female translator--caught between societal and familial expectations and her unique ability to speak truth to power--as she fights to expose the dark truths of her nation's past. For twenty-four-year-old Eva Bruhns, World War II is a foggy childhood memory. At the war's end, Frankfurt was a smoldering ruin, severely...

It's early 1938, and Maisie Dobbs is back in England. On a fine yet chilly morning, as she walks towards Fitzroy Square -- a place of many memories -- she is intercepted by Brian Huntley and Robert MacFarlane of the Secret Service. The German government has agreed to release a British subject from prison, but only if he is handed over to a family member. Because the man's wife is bedridden and his daughter has been killed in an accident, the Secret...

When her beloved Great-Aunt Ilse arrives on her doorstep, leaving war-ravaged Germany behind, former Secret Service agent Verity Kent soon discovers that danger has followed Ilse when ant-Germen sentiment is taken to murderous lengths. November 1919. At the seaside with her husband, Sidney, could almost convince Verity Kent that life has returned to the pleasant rhythm of pre-war days. Then her beloved Great Aunt Ilse lands on their doorstep after...

Vera is surprised when her niece shows up at her East Prussia farmhouse with her young son after fleeing a bad relationship in Hamburg and the pair find they have more in common than they ever thought possible.

"Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler's deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety....