Synopsis
Ordered to return goods stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners after World War II, the U.S. Army discovers fraudulent records for a collection belonging to Hamplemann, and they begin an investigation that lasts for two decades in order to determineif he is a conman or a front for someone more powerful
Reviews
An unassuming GI is assigned to an army unit redistributing stolen property in post-WW II Europe in this provocative thriller, which offers a subtle exploration of morality. Having worked in a pawn shop, the unnamed narrator, a soldier in the 7th Army, is deemed qualified to staff the newly created 855th Service Company. But he is not entirely prepared for the obsessive greed exhibited by numerous Europeans and some fellow GIs, as the members of the 855th pursue a series of expressionist paintings said to belong to mysterious Alexander Hampelmann. GI Abraham Berdichevsky unmasks Hampelmann as a likely thief; in the ensuing pursuit, the strange German is apparently killed. During a search for his body the company's CO and four soldiers are very definitely killed, and the trail of death follows the narrator stateside where he tries his hand at reuniting immigrants with their possesions. Berdichevsky turns up in search of the paintings, as does an individual who says he is Hampelmann's brother and the rightful heir to the treasure. But its whereabouts, along with the reasons for the subsequent murder of "Hampelmann II," are murky. At a reunion of the 855th in France, the trail to the paintings is joined by other surprising players. In spare, stylish prose, Singer ( The Parallax View ) demonstrates that "making good" can have various meanings.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Soldiers sorting through ill-gotten Nazi loot find a case full of modern masters but can't find the proper owners--in a new novel from the author of The Parallax View (1970), etc. Moral complexities are the meat of this leisurely return to the immediate post-WW II period narrated by an 85% honest former pawnshop employee. The US Army's 855th Service Company, set up in war-ruined Germany to determine proper ownership of Nazi loot, receives several cases of exceptionally nice stuff--including a fortune in modern masters such as Klee and Kandinsky. Nazi records tie the collection to a Herr Hamplemann, but the raffish gentleman who shows up at the 855th claiming to be Hamplemann fails to recognize a single article casually presented to him by virtuous Captain Earley. The fleeing fraudulent Hamplemann shoots Earley and several of his troops, then drops from sight, possibly dead. The survivors continue the search for the real owner years after their company has been disbanded. Meanwhile, the narrator continues a relationship with certain opportunistic European lawyers--those who specialize in representing tenuous property claims for absent owners--and eventually locates a new Herr Hamplemann in New York. But this Hamplemann, who has no interest in the artwork, falls to gunshots fired, perhaps, by the old Hamplemann. Nothing is solved until the members of the 855th, who were never too fond of each other, reunite in Paris in the mid-Fifties. Major treatment of a minor story. Sags under its own weight. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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