V2 - A Novel of World War II

 I found Robert Harris' latest novel V2 - A Novel of World War II (#955) very interesting.  I had heard of the V2 rocket in passing, but I didn't really know how the Nazis used them, mainly against the British,  in the waning days of World War II.  The handwriting was already on the wall that the Germans were going to lose the war, but they were so determined to go down fighting they even named their rockets Vengeance and used their most radicalized members of the SS to enforce their use even though it was a risky and dangerous business for their own people.

Harris has humanized the story by introducing us to Erik Graf, a German rocket scientist and colleague of Werner Von Braun.  Erik has already figured that there is no point in continuing the bloodshed, and is carrying out his own campaign of defiance at the launch site at Scheveningen on the Dutch coast.  His counterpoint is a British Section Officer from the WAAFs, Kay Caton-Walsh.  She was in a British townhouse with her high-ranking RAF lover when a V2 falls in their neighborhood.  Although she survives, she has a personal interest in volunteering her math skills to help pinpoint where the V2 launches are coming from.  And so she finds herself stationed with a secret analysis unit in Mechelen, Belgium, not seventy miles from Graf's location.

Tracing the back stories and development of the V2 rockets ,and leading to the moment when Erik and Kay's paths meet makes for a compelling story.  Recommended.