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The Alphabet House

Review

The Alphabet House

If you are familiar at all with Jussi Adler-Olsen’s literary work, you are going to at least pick up THE ALPHABET HOUSE, even though it is as far outside the world of his Department Q novels as can be. While certainly a mystery, it is not a crime thriller per se and is a historical piece by definition, taking place during World War II in the first part and in 1972 in the second. It is also his most ambitious work to see United States publication at this point (thanks in large part to the steadfast translation from the Danish by Steve Schein), and one that satisfies and excites from beginning to end. All thrillers should be this good.

In his Author’s Note, Adler-Olsen hastens to advise readers that the book they hold in their hands is not a war novel. Certainly, though, it begins like one and demonstrates that if he were to decide to leave the world of police procedural novels for that of Tom Clancy and W. E. B. Griffin, he could do so with nary a blink.

"THE ALPHABET HOUSE is an extremely ambitious and complex novel, even for Adler-Olsen, who does not work with cookie-cutter plots.... And although originally published in Denmark in 1997, the historical setting and Adler-Olsen’s superior plotting and narrative render it timeless."

The event that sets THE ALPHABET HOUSE spinning is the introduction of two British pilots who, at the height of the war effort in January 1944, have been tasked with performing an air photo-reconnaissance mission near the fateful location of Dresden, Germany. Information gleaned from American and British intelligence sources indicate that the Nazis are building factories to produce a dangerous new weapon that would all but assure an Axis victory. James Teasdale and Bryan Young are the pilots on the mission; Bryan is war-weary and unhappy with having another soiree --- particularly such a dangerous one --- dumped in their collective lap, while James is resigned to the task, given his attitude that someone has to do it and it happens to be them.

What neither man plans upon, though certainly anticipates, is being shot down behind enemy lines, with an enemy bent on summarily executing them both. If you’re not sitting on the edge of your seat by the end of the first 18 pages, wherein James and Bryan barely escape their grimly determined pursuers, then you possess a mile-long chair. Escape they do, though much the worse for wear, grabbing a surreptitious ride aboard a hospital train. The two cleverly feign mental illness, but, alas, do so far too well. Their acting skills transport them from the frying pan of hot pursuit to the roaring fire of the Alphabet House, a mental hospital located even deeper inside enemy lines than James and Bryan already were to begin with. The treatment they are given makes execution seem like the more pleasurable course at times. And to make matters worse, they come to realize that they aren’t the only ones in the facility pretending to be ill, and that the respective acts of the British airmen are under close scrutiny by the medical personnel and their fellow patients.

James and Bryan’s original plan --- to fake illness until the war’s end --- ultimately proves to be untenable. So it is that one of them escapes, leaving the other to an unknown fate. The escapee later learns that the hospital was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid. The question remains, though: What happened to the pilot who was left behind? When given the opportunity to return in 1972 to a much different Germany, the man who got away attempts to determine the ultimate fate of his friend, following a path buried by time in an environment not always sympathetic to his quest.

THE ALPHABET HOUSE is an extremely ambitious and complex novel, even for Adler-Olsen, who does not work with cookie-cutter plots. While the second half moves somewhat more quickly than the first, there is no waste in the latter at all, as he creates tension and suspense that finds its ultimate relief in the book’s future. And although originally published in Denmark in 1997, the historical setting and Adler-Olsen’s superior plotting and narrative render it timeless. Don’t miss this one.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub on February 27, 2015

The Alphabet House
by Jussi Adler-Olsen