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The Devil comes to Bonn
2015. Stella, a professor and historian, comes to the beautiful and ancient city of Bonn, Germany, for a World Heritage conference. With things at home tearing at the seams, she is determined to pretend all is well. At least, until she is assaulted over a trivial matter by another delegate, Professor Giovanni Costa. Bewildered, Stella descends into a shadowy observer, slowly becoming an obsessed stalker. When she meets the elderly Hildegard on a park bench by the River Rhine she is drawn into her wartime story, little seeing the similarities to her own situation.
1941. Hildegard, new wife to Kurt and student of architecture, surrenders to the inevitable; she needs a job for them to pay their rent. Interviewing for a hotel post, she does not realise her life now is off course, running on a track destined to collide with the sinister Fuhrer himself. Although repulsed, she must play along with the Fatherland ideals—to show anything but enthusiasm would not only leave her without a job but probably worse circumstances. She is thrust into the role of maid to Hitler in the infamous room 106 in a hotel he visited more than 70 times. She is no longer able to hide away from reality in her studies. Moving forward is the only option, no matter how dark it gets.
With the story switching between 2015 and 1941, Stella and Hildegard face questions of survival, identity, love and meaning as they juggle moral ambiguities in a world of elusive justice.
1941. Hildegard, new wife to Kurt and student of architecture, surrenders to the inevitable; she needs a job for them to pay their rent. Interviewing for a hotel post, she does not realise her life now is off course, running on a track destined to collide with the sinister Fuhrer himself. Although repulsed, she must play along with the Fatherland ideals—to show anything but enthusiasm would not only leave her without a job but probably worse circumstances. She is thrust into the role of maid to Hitler in the infamous room 106 in a hotel he visited more than 70 times. She is no longer able to hide away from reality in her studies. Moving forward is the only option, no matter how dark it gets.
With the story switching between 2015 and 1941, Stella and Hildegard face questions of survival, identity, love and meaning as they juggle moral ambiguities in a world of elusive justice.
- GenresFiction
328 pages, Paperback
First published July 26, 2023
1 person is currently reading
2578 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Harris
2 books17 followersJennifer Harris writes literary fiction inspired by the historic environment—not historical fiction, but fiction set in the contemporary era that responds to the past, remembered either publicly in monuments and memorials, or in subtle, private ways.
Her PhD is in Cultural Heritage theory and she has lectured in and researched cultural heritage and museums for many years. She has also run a small museum, and worked as a journalist in Australia and London.
Jennifer is from Western Australia and has lived also in France and the UK. In 2020 she relocated to Seattle in the spectacular Pacific Northwest of the USA.
Her PhD is in Cultural Heritage theory and she has lectured in and researched cultural heritage and museums for many years. She has also run a small museum, and worked as a journalist in Australia and London.
Jennifer is from Western Australia and has lived also in France and the UK. In 2020 she relocated to Seattle in the spectacular Pacific Northwest of the USA.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 14, 2023
Jennifer Harris’ "The Devil Comes to Bonn” sets a tough course for itself by dividing its action between two plot lines, one of which, with its story of a plot against Hitler, would seem inherently more interesting than the other, which begins with a clash over a seat at an academic conference and ends with the offended party, historian Stella Robinson, seeking revenge.
Hardly unputdownable stuff, you'd think, the latter, against the more palpably exciting Nazi story, yet it’s to Harris’ credit that she got me interested enough in the academic storyline, especially in the last third of the book, in which Stella’s plot for retribution comes to fruition, that her story did indeed came to be almost as enthralling for me as the Nazi story. This despite being hampered by occasionally overblown prose (when, for instance, a spokesman at the conference is characterized as sighing into the microphone “like a desiccating gust of wind scorching a withered paddock”) and to my mind an occasional excess of description, which, particularly at the beginning, stalls the novel’s action at a time when it’s critical to be pulling the reader in.
But if a reader can get past those first few pages, the pace picks up considerably when Stella's offender, one Giovanni Costa, a sewer archaeologist described by another character as "vulgar and powerful, a dumbass of a man,” makes his appearance and provokes her enough, first with trying to appropriate her seat and then with launching invectives her way, to prompt her to follow him with a vague notion of getting back at him somehow, a notion given even more impetus when she comes upon him in a nasty exchange with a young woman at a rail station which ends with the young woman very nearly being propelled onto the tracks. Then there are the photos she comes upon in his hotel room in which young women's breasts and genitalia have been highlighted and markings have been made on the photos suggesting that the man might be intending harm the women's way. Which, together with the rail incident, gives Stella to think there's a moral imperative for her to act – what, after all, might this monster do?
Almost as enthralling, as I say, as the Nazi story, though still suffering from being pitted against the more traditionally compelling storyline in which a young woman takes a maid's job at a hotel in Bonn frequented by Hitler – Neville Chamberlain met with him there, we’re told – and is pressured by the resistance into using her access to him to perpetrate a plot against the Reich. This at a particularly fearful time for her when she and her husband are daily seeing Jews rounded up. What horrific consequences might she bring about for her husband if she's caught? she wonders, a fear which carries even more weight for readers with their foreknowledge from the prologue that her husband will in fact end up in the hands of the SS.
Still, even with the manifest risks for herself and her family that she is taking, she elects to proceed, with an eye toward the thousands that her actions might save, just as in the academic plot, Stella must weigh the possible legal consequences for herself if she's caught against what might happen to those women in the pictures and perhaps countless others if she doesn't act.
Tough moral choices for both women of the sort faced by world leaders as they weigh unpalatable and in some cases arguably indefensible actions in fighting true evil. The novel notes, for instance, how Churchill was suspected by some of having had advance knowledge of Coventry but chose not to act for fear of revealing to the Germans that their codes had been broken.
“It’s possible that he let the people of Coventry suffer terribly so that, in the long run, more people would live,” one character says, invoking the sort of relativistic moral logic that has been used to justify the atomic bombings of Japan. And while the bombings themselves aren’t specifically addressed in the novel, one of the Empire’s offenses that led to so extreme an Allied measure, the wartime enslavement of Koreans, is very much addressed, with protests mounted against an effort to erase the wartime crime from a public record. Indeed, protesters seek to enlist Stella in their cause, but she declines, what with her preoccupation with Costa and the toll that has taken on her personal life. In her marriage, most prominently, where her relations with her husband have become so strained that they have left her with a broken arm and where her son is in dire enough emotional straits that they finally bring him to a desperate action, but also at her job, where her preoccupation with Costa has put her on shaky enough ground that it is imperiling her chances of getting a sub-editorship she covets.
All of which makes for quite a plateful for Harris' novel, but there’s still more, with a storyline from the woman’s childhood in which she’s terrified by a serial killer and running references to Rome and Cassius, which, while no doubt buttressing the novel's concerns for those familiar with classical antiquity, nevertheless seemed to me to perhaps make for a bridge too far for an already pretty stuffed novel.
Still.
Those who follow my reviews know I'm pretty spare in awarding five stars, with how for me no novel is without imperfection, so I’m always inclined, even with novels I genuinely like, to go with four stars (which, by the by, is a perfectly fine rating, just as a B is a perfectly fine grade in school, for all that students today apparently feel that anything less than an A is cause for aggrievement). But with the picture Harris paints of the dangers of authoritarianism at a particularly worrisome time for our own country (a neuroscientist has warned that with the MAGA movement we’re seeing the largest and most dangerous cult in American history) I'm persuaded to go ahead and give the novel five stars. The devil comes to Bonn in both main plotlines of Harris’ story, and now, with Trump's re-election a very real possibility (a prospect presidential historian Michael Beschloss minces no words in saying would bring a presidential dictatorship), it’s a good bet he’s licking his chops about setting up shop right here in America.
Hardly unputdownable stuff, you'd think, the latter, against the more palpably exciting Nazi story, yet it’s to Harris’ credit that she got me interested enough in the academic storyline, especially in the last third of the book, in which Stella’s plot for retribution comes to fruition, that her story did indeed came to be almost as enthralling for me as the Nazi story. This despite being hampered by occasionally overblown prose (when, for instance, a spokesman at the conference is characterized as sighing into the microphone “like a desiccating gust of wind scorching a withered paddock”) and to my mind an occasional excess of description, which, particularly at the beginning, stalls the novel’s action at a time when it’s critical to be pulling the reader in.
But if a reader can get past those first few pages, the pace picks up considerably when Stella's offender, one Giovanni Costa, a sewer archaeologist described by another character as "vulgar and powerful, a dumbass of a man,” makes his appearance and provokes her enough, first with trying to appropriate her seat and then with launching invectives her way, to prompt her to follow him with a vague notion of getting back at him somehow, a notion given even more impetus when she comes upon him in a nasty exchange with a young woman at a rail station which ends with the young woman very nearly being propelled onto the tracks. Then there are the photos she comes upon in his hotel room in which young women's breasts and genitalia have been highlighted and markings have been made on the photos suggesting that the man might be intending harm the women's way. Which, together with the rail incident, gives Stella to think there's a moral imperative for her to act – what, after all, might this monster do?
Almost as enthralling, as I say, as the Nazi story, though still suffering from being pitted against the more traditionally compelling storyline in which a young woman takes a maid's job at a hotel in Bonn frequented by Hitler – Neville Chamberlain met with him there, we’re told – and is pressured by the resistance into using her access to him to perpetrate a plot against the Reich. This at a particularly fearful time for her when she and her husband are daily seeing Jews rounded up. What horrific consequences might she bring about for her husband if she's caught? she wonders, a fear which carries even more weight for readers with their foreknowledge from the prologue that her husband will in fact end up in the hands of the SS.
Still, even with the manifest risks for herself and her family that she is taking, she elects to proceed, with an eye toward the thousands that her actions might save, just as in the academic plot, Stella must weigh the possible legal consequences for herself if she's caught against what might happen to those women in the pictures and perhaps countless others if she doesn't act.
Tough moral choices for both women of the sort faced by world leaders as they weigh unpalatable and in some cases arguably indefensible actions in fighting true evil. The novel notes, for instance, how Churchill was suspected by some of having had advance knowledge of Coventry but chose not to act for fear of revealing to the Germans that their codes had been broken.
“It’s possible that he let the people of Coventry suffer terribly so that, in the long run, more people would live,” one character says, invoking the sort of relativistic moral logic that has been used to justify the atomic bombings of Japan. And while the bombings themselves aren’t specifically addressed in the novel, one of the Empire’s offenses that led to so extreme an Allied measure, the wartime enslavement of Koreans, is very much addressed, with protests mounted against an effort to erase the wartime crime from a public record. Indeed, protesters seek to enlist Stella in their cause, but she declines, what with her preoccupation with Costa and the toll that has taken on her personal life. In her marriage, most prominently, where her relations with her husband have become so strained that they have left her with a broken arm and where her son is in dire enough emotional straits that they finally bring him to a desperate action, but also at her job, where her preoccupation with Costa has put her on shaky enough ground that it is imperiling her chances of getting a sub-editorship she covets.
All of which makes for quite a plateful for Harris' novel, but there’s still more, with a storyline from the woman’s childhood in which she’s terrified by a serial killer and running references to Rome and Cassius, which, while no doubt buttressing the novel's concerns for those familiar with classical antiquity, nevertheless seemed to me to perhaps make for a bridge too far for an already pretty stuffed novel.
Still.
Those who follow my reviews know I'm pretty spare in awarding five stars, with how for me no novel is without imperfection, so I’m always inclined, even with novels I genuinely like, to go with four stars (which, by the by, is a perfectly fine rating, just as a B is a perfectly fine grade in school, for all that students today apparently feel that anything less than an A is cause for aggrievement). But with the picture Harris paints of the dangers of authoritarianism at a particularly worrisome time for our own country (a neuroscientist has warned that with the MAGA movement we’re seeing the largest and most dangerous cult in American history) I'm persuaded to go ahead and give the novel five stars. The devil comes to Bonn in both main plotlines of Harris’ story, and now, with Trump's re-election a very real possibility (a prospect presidential historian Michael Beschloss minces no words in saying would bring a presidential dictatorship), it’s a good bet he’s licking his chops about setting up shop right here in America.
August 29, 2023
Thank you NetGalley and Troubador for this eCopy to review
I found this quite a difficult book to read and quite implausible that a well respected, educated woman would descend into this level of madness stalking and hurting another professor. I did enjoy Hildegard's story and found it very interesting but I think the link between their stories was not as strong as Harris would have liked.
I found this quite a difficult book to read and quite implausible that a well respected, educated woman would descend into this level of madness stalking and hurting another professor. I did enjoy Hildegard's story and found it very interesting but I think the link between their stories was not as strong as Harris would have liked.
October 20, 2023
This is a debut novel and the author did a pretty good job of bringing me in and keeping me interested. At least the historical part.
Told in two timelines, 2015 and 1941. Stella a college professor and Hildegard who was a maid during the reign of terror from Hitler.
I was not impressed with Stella at all. She seemed to be a very immature person. And that she was a professor was even more unbelievable that her maturity. She's stalking a fellow professor? Yes he was a jerk. Yes he might be a horrible man. But Stella is suppose to be an educated person. She has her share of misfortunes with men it seems. I just didn't like her.
Hildegard was a very likable woman. You meet her after the fact, in 2015. She meets Stella and starts telling her about when she worked as a maid. How she and her new husband were helping Jews escape. How she started helping the resistance try to overthrow the Nazis. This part of the story was fascinating. What all happened and why it happened will hold your attention.
I did not exactly get the link to the two women, Stella and Hildegard, but may have missed something. Maybe the sexism. Maybe something else. This book is very good. It was a bit slow starting out for me but it wrapped up quite nicely and was a very enjoyable read.
If you like historical and perhaps metoo movement stories this is the one for you. It was a good book. The author did a good job of bringing everything together. Some got what they deserved for being such jerks. I eventually kind of liked Stella's husband Peter. He started out a bit of a jerk by the way.
I gave this one FOUR stars and recommend it. You will enjoy it.
Told in two timelines, 2015 and 1941. Stella a college professor and Hildegard who was a maid during the reign of terror from Hitler.
I was not impressed with Stella at all. She seemed to be a very immature person. And that she was a professor was even more unbelievable that her maturity. She's stalking a fellow professor? Yes he was a jerk. Yes he might be a horrible man. But Stella is suppose to be an educated person. She has her share of misfortunes with men it seems. I just didn't like her.
Hildegard was a very likable woman. You meet her after the fact, in 2015. She meets Stella and starts telling her about when she worked as a maid. How she and her new husband were helping Jews escape. How she started helping the resistance try to overthrow the Nazis. This part of the story was fascinating. What all happened and why it happened will hold your attention.
I did not exactly get the link to the two women, Stella and Hildegard, but may have missed something. Maybe the sexism. Maybe something else. This book is very good. It was a bit slow starting out for me but it wrapped up quite nicely and was a very enjoyable read.
If you like historical and perhaps metoo movement stories this is the one for you. It was a good book. The author did a good job of bringing everything together. Some got what they deserved for being such jerks. I eventually kind of liked Stella's husband Peter. He started out a bit of a jerk by the way.
I gave this one FOUR stars and recommend it. You will enjoy it.
October 7, 2023
The Devil Comes to Bonn is a duel timeline novel set in the years 1941 and 2015. This book centers on two women who are faced with the question of Moral Ambiguity in their lives. Both are very conflicted about men around them who lack the ability to make ethical decisions.
Stella a professor in 2015 meets an elderly woman named Hildegard at a World Heritage Conference in Bonn, Germany. While there, Stella has a terrible run-in with a “famous” professor whom she has an altercation with. From there she becomes absolutely obsessed with getting back at Professor Costa to make him pay. This part of the story was weird and kind of creepy how she stalked him, even though she should have pressed charges. She goes through a lot as she deals with him.
Hildegard’s story was fascinating to me. She was living in Germany in 1941. She gets a job as a maid at the Rhein Hotel Dreesen. She is assigned to be the maid for the Fuhrersuite where Adolph Hitler would come and stay. Hildegard is disgusted at doing this job and also intimated and scared. Soon she becomes involved with a revolutionary group fighting against Hilter and the Nazis.
This story comes down to making decisions in our lives and having the courage to do the right thing. It’s also a matter where readers have to decide who the villains and heroes really are. It’s also a story about women who gather their strength so as not to be pushed around anymore. The Devil Comes to Bonn is a powerful story that will make you look at people and their motives in a different way.
3.5-4 Stars
Stella a professor in 2015 meets an elderly woman named Hildegard at a World Heritage Conference in Bonn, Germany. While there, Stella has a terrible run-in with a “famous” professor whom she has an altercation with. From there she becomes absolutely obsessed with getting back at Professor Costa to make him pay. This part of the story was weird and kind of creepy how she stalked him, even though she should have pressed charges. She goes through a lot as she deals with him.
Hildegard’s story was fascinating to me. She was living in Germany in 1941. She gets a job as a maid at the Rhein Hotel Dreesen. She is assigned to be the maid for the Fuhrersuite where Adolph Hitler would come and stay. Hildegard is disgusted at doing this job and also intimated and scared. Soon she becomes involved with a revolutionary group fighting against Hilter and the Nazis.
This story comes down to making decisions in our lives and having the courage to do the right thing. It’s also a matter where readers have to decide who the villains and heroes really are. It’s also a story about women who gather their strength so as not to be pushed around anymore. The Devil Comes to Bonn is a powerful story that will make you look at people and their motives in a different way.
3.5-4 Stars
September 24, 2023
Yes, another WWII dual time line novel, but this one hits a bit different with the two characters and this war storyline is not one I have read before. Stella is a professor and historian at a heritage conference when she is accosted by another professor and she can hardly believe what transpired. Sick of men always doing whatever they want and getting away with it, she takes matters into her own hands and decides he needs to face his actions and who he is as a person. This really resonates currently with the #MeeToo movement that has been calling out men in power and their behavior towards women. Meanwhile, Hildegard simply is looking for someone to converse with again when Stella is found sitting on a park bench she frequented. Feeling Stella is a woman she can easily talk to, Hildegard slowly unfolds her story of being put into the role of Hitler's maid at a hotel he often frequented and the fall out of her actions that she has lived with her whole life. I really enjoyed Hildegard's story and sometimes I struggled with Stella's character but she also had a lot of depth from her past and what she was trying to handle with her husband and son while away at conference. Thank you to Author Marketing Experts for introducing me to this author and to the author for sending me a free copy of her debut novel. Historical fans need to add this to their list to read. This review is of my own opinion and accord.
September 17, 2023
This novel is a dense and suspenseful read that builds steadily until the tension is boiling over. If you think you have it all figured out by page 50 - keep moving, it took a number of turns and twists I was not anticipating, and the final third must be read in one sitting.
I found this book quite moving and at times even challenging. The stringing together of a complex set of characters and narratives across multiple decades is executed with elegance.
Some may claim that the descent of Stella's character into madness over what appears initially to be a seemingly banal/tame interaction with Costa is unrealistic (not a spoiler as this is revealed in the blurb of the book), however, seemingly everyday interactions between regular humans are how most major conflicts begin. One crack at a time, and that is exactly what we see play out here.
This is an impressive novel, made extra impressive by the fact that it is the author's debut work.
I look forward to reading more novels from this author.
I found this book quite moving and at times even challenging. The stringing together of a complex set of characters and narratives across multiple decades is executed with elegance.
Some may claim that the descent of Stella's character into madness over what appears initially to be a seemingly banal/tame interaction with Costa is unrealistic (not a spoiler as this is revealed in the blurb of the book), however, seemingly everyday interactions between regular humans are how most major conflicts begin. One crack at a time, and that is exactly what we see play out here.
This is an impressive novel, made extra impressive by the fact that it is the author's debut work.
I look forward to reading more novels from this author.
November 1, 2023
This was a great book, strong 3.75 stars. This book switches between both stories of these two women who go through some obstacles and find a way to overcome them for their own survival. I enjoyed this book and saw the similarities between the characters.
The book was a story of two women who lived in different times that meet. The story begins with Stella who is a professor attending a World Heritage conference in Bonn, Germany. She encounters Professor Costa who is rude and assaults her because he can. Stella gets into a revengeful state of mind and does things that is not normal for her. While she is going through his her family life is unraveling and professional life hits a few kinks as well. Stella happens to meet an elderly woman, Hildegard, who lived during the 1940's during the Hitler era and gets drawn into her story. Hildegard was a student architect that ended up getting a side job as a hotel maid for Hitler. Hildegard gets wrapped up in some troublesome activities and her simple quiet life unravels.
The book was a story of two women who lived in different times that meet. The story begins with Stella who is a professor attending a World Heritage conference in Bonn, Germany. She encounters Professor Costa who is rude and assaults her because he can. Stella gets into a revengeful state of mind and does things that is not normal for her. While she is going through his her family life is unraveling and professional life hits a few kinks as well. Stella happens to meet an elderly woman, Hildegard, who lived during the 1940's during the Hitler era and gets drawn into her story. Hildegard was a student architect that ended up getting a side job as a hotel maid for Hitler. Hildegard gets wrapped up in some troublesome activities and her simple quiet life unravels.
September 19, 2023
There's a dark intensity throughout this novel. The author places her characters in 1941 and 2015 where history is much more than just a backdrop.
Both Stella Robinson and Hildegard Weber are very powerful characters. One has survived tragedy, the other comes close to experiencing tragedy, as they talk together on a park bench in Bonn.
I loved all the moral dilemmas that form a key element of this novel. It makes one think of the morality of the world we live in today. The world we have already brought so close to destruction through climate change.
I was fascinated by the references to Beethoven, his home in Bonn, and the less savoury presence of Adolf Hitler in the city.
Both Stella Robinson and Hildegard Weber are very powerful characters. One has survived tragedy, the other comes close to experiencing tragedy, as they talk together on a park bench in Bonn.
I loved all the moral dilemmas that form a key element of this novel. It makes one think of the morality of the world we live in today. The world we have already brought so close to destruction through climate change.
I was fascinated by the references to Beethoven, his home in Bonn, and the less savoury presence of Adolf Hitler in the city.
September 17, 2023
Thought I had this book all figured out by page 50 but I was wrong. The final act rockets in and accelerates fast. I would classify this as a thriller. Was shocked to discover this is the author’s first work, I would have thought this was a veteran writer, very dense but well written.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews