 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
Early One Morning
By Robert Ryan, Published by Review (Hodder Headline)
 It is something of a common popular culture ‘joke’ that the French rolled over a mite too quickly in the face of German hostility in World War II. If I were French I think I would be more than a little miffed at the inference that my country was a nation of cowards – besides, there is the notable and exemplary exception of the French Resistance who fought the good fight.
Robert Ryan’s (author of Underdogs, Nine Mile and Trans Am) latest book, Early One Morning, is set in this time of France’s maximum danger as two former racing circuit rivals (one French, one English) find themselves fighting the ‘iron grip of German occupation’ from the Special Operations Executive. Oh, and of course there’s a woman involved.
While the ‘love triangle’ plot is unsurprisingly hackneyed in places, overall the story works through its emphasis on strong and believable characterisation.
What may have been a throwaway work in other hands is also elevated by the story’s basis in fact – what sparked Ryan into writing was the idea of ‘the fastest men in the world against the German occupiers’.
Early One Morning manages to push the right buttons in the reader as the book builds towards an exciting conclusion (in an ending that differs from the real life tragedy of its main characters who unfortunately did not get to see out the war).
Early One Morning is recommended and intelligent reading for anyone who likes their romantic character-driven fiction to be reality-based and set in one of history’s more trying times.
Catch Me If You Can
By Frank Abagnale (with Stan Redding), Published by
Random House
New York’s Frank Abagnale can legitimately lay claim to having led one extraordinary – if very illegal and unpolitically correct – life.
From the tender age of 16, Abagnale embarked on one of the most brazen crime sprees imaginable. Confidence man par excellence, he made an art form from impersonating airline pilots while trading on his innate charm and style. Not to mention spending time as a university lecturer, lawyer and a practicing doctor.
By the age of 21, he had written over $2.5 million in bad cheques and had the police of over 26 countries hot on his tail.
All told, Abagnale’s real life exploits read like fiction, or more appropriately, as a suspend-all-disbelief-if-you-can Hollywood movie.
And yes, the movie has been made!
These days Abagnale is the proverbial fox running with the hounds, as sometime after the period covered in the book he made the transition to the other side. He is now “one of the world’s most respected authorities on counterfeiting and secure documents” – and has even worked for the FBI for over 25 years.
This reviewer usually shies away from co-written books, but in this case I’ll make an exception. The fact that the book (which has been around since 1980, but was only relatively recently published in Australia) has sold around 25,000 copies in our country alone testifies that Catch Me If You Can is a cracking good read.
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