Helpful Score: 1
Originally published in 1986, I didn't come across Daddy by Loup Durand until I saw it at a library sale last year. I was attracted by the cover: a blue eye with the relfection of a swastika. I enjoy historical fiction a lot so I picked it up. It's a suspense thriller and I usually don't enjoy that genre but this is one of the best I've ever read. I think what appealled to me most was the cat-and-mouse game going on between the young hero, an 11 year old boy named Thomas and the perverted man hunting him down for the Nazis, Gregor Laemmle. There's another hero, too, an American playboy type, David Quartermain, who's almost like a third wheel.
In fact the one thing I didn't like about the book was a sudden sidetrack into what was going on with Quartermain after he was caught by Laemmle (okay, I gave something away). The story moved along very quickly and I was on the end of my seat, biting my nails, and then it came almost to a screeching halt at just about that point. I didn't like it. It was a terrible interruption of the flow. What was it for? I have no clue.
There are lots of pursuit stories out there and many with Nazi villains and heroes with secrets trying to get away. A couple of things were different about this one. The boy is a genius, entrusted with a secret by his mother. She used his genius in such a way that turned him into a cold little thinking machine. The villain seems to be something of a genius too. They are always outwitting each other. I don't want to give away any more of the book. I'd rate it a 9 out of 10 and definitely would recommend it!
In fact the one thing I didn't like about the book was a sudden sidetrack into what was going on with Quartermain after he was caught by Laemmle (okay, I gave something away). The story moved along very quickly and I was on the end of my seat, biting my nails, and then it came almost to a screeching halt at just about that point. I didn't like it. It was a terrible interruption of the flow. What was it for? I have no clue.
There are lots of pursuit stories out there and many with Nazi villains and heroes with secrets trying to get away. A couple of things were different about this one. The boy is a genius, entrusted with a secret by his mother. She used his genius in such a way that turned him into a cold little thinking machine. The villain seems to be something of a genius too. They are always outwitting each other. I don't want to give away any more of the book. I'd rate it a 9 out of 10 and definitely would recommend it!
Helpful Score: 1
From the book cover:
He's a genius. He has the key to $350 Million locked in his head. He's being hunted by the Nazis. He's Eleven years old. And there's only on eman who can save him. A man he's never met.
He's a genius. He has the key to $350 Million locked in his head. He's being hunted by the Nazis. He's Eleven years old. And there's only on eman who can save him. A man he's never met.
FROM Back Cover: He's a genius. He has the key to $350 Million locked in his head. He's being hunted by the Nazis. He's eleven years old and there's only one man who can save him. A man he's never met.
From Publishers Weekly
With superb plotting, mesmerizing characters and brilliant chase scenes, Daddy will enthrall connossieurs of suspense and intrigue from its opening sentences to the emotionally charged denouement. At the heart of this taut, psychological, action-packed thriller set in the early 1940s is Thomas, an exceptional 11-year-old boy whose mind, a well-oiled, precise "machine," contains the complicated codes to 724 secret Swiss bank accounts, a fortune the Nazis have been trying to get at for many years. Their operative is a 46-year-old professor of philosophy, reputed to be the most intelligent man in the Third Reich. Like two chess grand masters, the hunter and his quarry ingeniously outmaneuver each other, each understanding the superior intelligence of his opponent and able to anticipate the other's moves several steps in advance. The drama is heightened by the boy's intense relationships with his beautiful and elusive mother, who trained him for his mission, and with his almost-invisible Spanish bodyguards and a network of supporters from France, Switzerland and Spain set up by her in advance. Particularly poignant is Thomas's relationship with a well-connected American banker who did not know of the boy's existence until asked by the woman he once loved to endanger his own life to save his son's. As sensitive as he is intelligent, Thomas guards against attachment to the man who is his father: too many people he has loved have been savagely murdered by the Nazis. Durand has written several French bestsellers under a pseudonym; Daddy , the first work published in the U.S. under his real name, was a leading bestseller in France. Considering the mastery he displays in this popular genre, readers will anxiously await more. Dual main selection of the Literary Guild; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Selection; optioned to Columbia Pictures.
With superb plotting, mesmerizing characters and brilliant chase scenes, Daddy will enthrall connossieurs of suspense and intrigue from its opening sentences to the emotionally charged denouement. At the heart of this taut, psychological, action-packed thriller set in the early 1940s is Thomas, an exceptional 11-year-old boy whose mind, a well-oiled, precise "machine," contains the complicated codes to 724 secret Swiss bank accounts, a fortune the Nazis have been trying to get at for many years. Their operative is a 46-year-old professor of philosophy, reputed to be the most intelligent man in the Third Reich. Like two chess grand masters, the hunter and his quarry ingeniously outmaneuver each other, each understanding the superior intelligence of his opponent and able to anticipate the other's moves several steps in advance. The drama is heightened by the boy's intense relationships with his beautiful and elusive mother, who trained him for his mission, and with his almost-invisible Spanish bodyguards and a network of supporters from France, Switzerland and Spain set up by her in advance. Particularly poignant is Thomas's relationship with a well-connected American banker who did not know of the boy's existence until asked by the woman he once loved to endanger his own life to save his son's. As sensitive as he is intelligent, Thomas guards against attachment to the man who is his father: too many people he has loved have been savagely murdered by the Nazis. Durand has written several French bestsellers under a pseudonym; Daddy , the first work published in the U.S. under his real name, was a leading bestseller in France. Considering the mastery he displays in this popular genre, readers will anxiously await more. Dual main selection of the Literary Guild; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Selection; optioned to Columbia Pictures.
