Ben and Emily Miller met when they fled Auschwitz together, and the pair have built a happy family in the decades since. But the opening chapter of Terence J. Davis’s A STUNNING BETRAYAL throws their lives into disarray when housebreakers attempt to commit a racially charged crime. In the wake of the attack, the couple opens up about their past—both to strengthen Emily’s plea of self-defense against their attacker and to find more information about the perpetrators of the attack.
What they find is more than anyone expected. When an agent tracks down information about a former Nazi officer who may be connected to their case, Ben reveals that his own history may not be as cut-and-dried as once believed. Confronted with complicated truths about the man she thought she knew, Emily separates herself from Ben as the case continues. Ben, meanwhile, decides to take matters into his own hands.
The first part of A STUNNING BETRAYAL is a detailed and heartbreaking account of life in a concentration camp, as both Ben and Emily recount their memories of their lives before meeting each other. Even if the book had been nothing but these reminiscences, it would have been a worthwhile read. But once Ben’s secret surfaces, the novel switches into full-on intrigue. In a bid to protect his family and find some answers of his own, he confronts one of the very people responsible for millions of deaths during the war. As the story moves into its final act, more lives are on the line, and it becomes clear where this former officer stands decades later.
If there is one problem with A STUNNING BETRAYAL, it’s that there are occasional pacing issues. There will be long stretches of back-and-forth dialogue with no indicators of who is speaking, which can lead to confusion in tense scenes. Additionally, there are some parts that feel a bit like filler; previous monologues are redelivered in an abridged form, and there are bits of dialogue that neither move the plot nor enrich the reader’s view of the characters. However, these are small issues that only really feel out of place in the intense final act.
All of that aside, this is an excellent and innovative read, demonstrating both the villainy that refuses to be rooted out of some hearts and the love that refuses to be stifled in others. While the story itself is a work of fiction, the atrocities it addresses were (and are) very real and deserve to be remembered.
Terence J. Davis’s A STUNNING BETRAYAL paints a vivid picture of one family’s dramatic, convoluted experience with the Holocaust, highlighting both humanity’s potential for redemption and capacity for hatred.
~ Kara Dennison for IndieReader