379 pages, Little, Brown, ISBN-13: 978-0316405089
My boss at the Fraser Public Library told me all about Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin – leaving out the fact that it was written with tweens in mind. Anyway…so it is an alternate 1956 in which the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan have won World War II and rule the world between them, with America an isolationist outpost. Every year the victorious powers host the Axis Tour, an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents to commemorate their triumph. The grand prize is a personal audience with the now-reclusive Führer at the Victor’s Ball in Tokyo. This is important to Yael (that’s Yah-ell), a member of the Resistance, former death camp prisoner and survivor of painful human experimentation which gave her the power to skin-shift and take on a different face and form almost at will. This year her mission is to impersonate last year’s only female winner of the race, Adele Wolfe, so that she may win the Tour and get close to Hitler – and assassinate him in public before the eyes of the world.
I have been on something of an Axis-Win-It-All-Alternative-History kick for a couple of months now, starting with reviewing Fatherland by Robert Harris on January 3rd, 2024, continuing with watching “The Man in the High Castle” miniseries on Amazon Prime and now with Wolf by Wolf, all totally by accident, too. I swear. No really. So Wolf by Wolf just kind of continues the trend. The premise is interesting and the character of Yael, complete with superpowers, put an interesting twist on the whole Nazis Won It All narrative. And her coping with all of those people who know the real Adele – including Adele’s brother, Felix – added tension and brought forth Yael’s characteristics. Unfortunately, she is the only really developed character in the book, as brother Felix and erstwhile suitor/rival Luka are cardboard cutouts constantly trying to get close to “Adele” while also trying to control her. All the other characters are just background decoration who add nothing to the tale. And a little more insight into this alternative timeline would have been nice.
There were some surprising moments, as an event occurs at about midpoint during the race that I didn’t see coming; this was a negative and a positive, I thought, as it disrupted the flow of the narrative (and the race) while also giving a certain insight into this nightmare, Nazi-run world. And the ending was rather a surprise, as well, and was not typical of works of this sort. Trying not to spoil anything for you, Dear Reader, only trying to describe some strong-and-weak points in a book that was outside of my comfort zone. So Wolf by Wolf was okay and I don’t regret reading it; perhaps if I was in the target demographic I’d get more out of it, but it is what it is. There is a second book in the series that I think I’ll tackle, because why not? I got them from the Shelby Public library for $1.50 for the pair, so might as well get my modest cost out of them.
