Last Light - by Elizabeth Farnsworth (Hardcover)

About the Book

Isabelle Graham interprets for German prisoners of war at a U.S. Army Hospital in Kansas. Harboring dark secrets from her childhood, she will be forced into a life and death struggle over her own life and those in the distant war.

Book Synopsis

The year is 1943. Victorious in North Africa, the Allies send thousands of German prisoners of war to the United States. Severely injured or ill POWS will be treated in U.S. Army hospitals. On a hot day in August, a young newspaper reporter rides her horse to the Buffalo Ridge Army Hospital just west of Topeka, Kansas. Carrying an aura of mystery, Isabelle Graham speaks German with a Viennese accent. She is soon hired to interpret for an amnesiac prisoner who claims to be a corporal but behaves more like a high officer. Isabelle must discover his identity. Her quest will end in bloody violence with consequences not only for her and the prisoner, but also for many others in the far-away conflagration of war.

Review Quotes

"In Kansas at the height of WWII, Farnsworth presents a U.S. Army Hospital where injured and ill American soldiers and German prisoners of war exhibit all the traits and complications of a complex and intimate world. Here a young interpreter begins to unravel one prisoner's secrets, which leads to a crime she must overcome in order to survive."

"An intriguing tale that moves seamlessly between the Kansas prairie and the cafés of Vienna and explores where honor ends and betrayal begins, or maybe it's the other way around. War stories are often painted in the bold colors of military and political giants and knaves, but the real history of war is wrapped around the spirits and emotions, often in conflict with each other, of people whose tales get lost in time. Thanks to Elizabeth Farnsworth for making these realities so vivid."

"With delicacy and grace, Farnsworth illuminates a moment in history all but lost to memory. The remarkable novel manages to be compelling as a war story, a love story, and even a western! What a gift it was to read."

"In the summer of 1943, a young woman is hired to interpret for German prisoners of war at a U.S. Army Hospital in Kansas. Harboring dark secrets from her childhood, Isabelle Graham will be forced into a struggle that saves her own life as well as many others in the distant, ongoing war. Farnsworth has written in Last Light a thrilling and moving account of a young woman's courage and determination in the face of seemingly insuperable odds."

"This extraordinary short novel, Last Light, follows a young woman, Isabelle Graham, from Vienna to Topeka to Nuremberg, telling a World War II story unlike any others. It is at once a coming-of-age tale, a morality tale, and a dark fairy tale inspired by the Brothers Grimm's The Juniper Tree. Compact and complex, Elizabeth Farnsworth's story evokes beautifully the innocence of a Kansas childhood, a woman's sexual and intellectual awakening, and the physical and psychic wounds of war with its inherent moral ambiguities. The central question-When is killing justified?-haunts until the end."