Helpful Score: 1
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel told from the perspective of a black jazz musician from Baltimore in 1939/1940 Nazi-occupied Berlin and Paris. He and his group are trying to make records before the "boots" (SS) can find them. One of the group is a half-black German kid (Hiero) who really has no country after the Nazis took control but who is a genius playing jazz on the trumpet. The group escapes from Berlin to Paris and meet up with the legendary Louis Armstrong to make a recording. However, the Nazis occupy Paris, Armstrong flees, and Hiero is arrested and sent to a prison camp. The remaining members think Hiero has died in the camp but it turns out that he survived and lived in Poland. Years later, the two remaining members of the group go to Poland and find him. As I said, overall, I did enjoy this with the jazz lingo and story taking place in Nazi-occupied Europe; however, I was kind of disappointed with the ending. The story builds up to finding Hiero in Poland but it never really explains how he survived and what he was doing in Poland since the war. Because of this, I would only mildly recommend it.
