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The Escape of Alfred Dreyfus
Unjustly convicted of treason, Alfred Dreyfus has spent five years in solitary confinement on Devil’s Island in the Caribbean. He is weak from starvation and hopelessness. In Paris, his friends have secretly conspired to help him escape. They hire three unlikely adventurers to engineer one the most daring prison breaks in history: Dynamite Johnny O’Brien, smuggler and explosives expert; William Astor Chanler, millionaire, soldier, and US Congressman; and internationally-acclaimed actress Judith de Rougemont. But Caliban, an agent of the French Secret Service, has found out about the plot and will do everything possible to prevent it.
242 pages, Paperback
First published December 5, 2016
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March 6, 2017
For an old-style adventure story, this book was surprisingly colorful and witty. Dreyfus is framed for a contrived attempt to sell military secrets--a crime for which someone else eventually confessed--but because he is Jewish, the military court pins the blame on him and sends him off to spend his life in solitary confinement on Devil's Island (which is in the Atlantic, not in the Caribbean as the book summary says). Meanwhile, in France, a cabal of wealthy Jewish businessmen hire an American gun-smuggler to rescue Dreyfus, and assigns Judith de Rougemont to keep an eye on him. Dynamite Johnny O'Brien enlists the aid of Congressman William Chanler and his yacht, but the plot is soon uncovered by French Security in the form of the unscrupulous spy Caliban. In the end, the entire effort is upset by a bizarre twist of fate that no one could have predicted.
Modeled very closely on historical events, including the details of Dreyfus' imprisonment and the lives of Dynamite Johnny and Willie Chanler, this book is a clever history lesson in "what might have been, had only..." The original manuscript by Robie Macauley was carefully edited by his son Cameron to make the story move faster, but it retains much of its turn-of-the-century elegance in descriptions of Paris and New Orleans in 1899.
One minor quibble: although the book includes appendices describing the lives of the actual O'Brien and Chanler, including a chapter from O'Brien's autobiography, there is nothing about how the Dreyfus Affair actually ended. He was fully exonerated and rejoined the same army that had nearly destroyed him, to take part in World War One at Verdun, and finally retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Anyone familiar with the dark details of the Dreyfus Affair will be thrilled by this lighthearted revision of history. For another collaboration by these two authors, see Citadel of Ice: Life and death in a glacier fortress during World War I.
Modeled very closely on historical events, including the details of Dreyfus' imprisonment and the lives of Dynamite Johnny and Willie Chanler, this book is a clever history lesson in "what might have been, had only..." The original manuscript by Robie Macauley was carefully edited by his son Cameron to make the story move faster, but it retains much of its turn-of-the-century elegance in descriptions of Paris and New Orleans in 1899.
One minor quibble: although the book includes appendices describing the lives of the actual O'Brien and Chanler, including a chapter from O'Brien's autobiography, there is nothing about how the Dreyfus Affair actually ended. He was fully exonerated and rejoined the same army that had nearly destroyed him, to take part in World War One at Verdun, and finally retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Anyone familiar with the dark details of the Dreyfus Affair will be thrilled by this lighthearted revision of history. For another collaboration by these two authors, see Citadel of Ice: Life and death in a glacier fortress during World War I.
Displaying 1 of 1 review