Bruce Ashkenas

Shadows of Shame is a brilliant work. Bruce Ashkenas has crafted a spy story, a romance, and a courtroom drama about a dark period in world history, when Nazi’s roamed America with arrogant impunity. Harold Apple, newsman, single, Jewish, risks his life to infiltrate the Nazi Bund in late 1930s New York City on behalf of his paper. In search of the real story, he witnesses brutal cruelty of a hate-filled paramilitary mob. Apple walks readers through historical events, and introduces them to real people who played crucial roles in the unfolding drama when America flirted with fascism, and Germany was seduced by it before WWII. In reading Shadows of Shame there is no way to prepare for the shock of the story’s whipsaw turns. Through it all, Ashkenas writes with warmth, with heart, and with a grace rarely found today. He loves language, and knows how to flail a human soul with his words. I stand awestruck by his keenly honed talent. Yet there is nothing mawkish about Harold Apple’s journey. Simply put, this is not a book. It is a literary experience you will never forget.
Robert Blake Whitehill — Author, Screenwriter, The Ben Blackshaw Series, www.RobertBlakeWhitehill.com