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The Second Child
Secrets buried by war will be unearthed…
The Second World War has been over for more a year, when a Nazi war criminal calls U.S. Amy Lt. John Hurtree to his prison cell.
It is the day before he is to be executed and he tries to gain information about the identity of a child in a photograph.
Hurtree refuses to tell him anything, but the question of the child lingers with him and haunts his life for decades after...
Many years later in 1996 in Stockholm, Sweden, the police are investigating the mysterious death of a doctor and his nurse, grabbing Hurtree’s attention once again.
Determined to unravel the mystery that the Nazi war criminal left with him some fifty years ago, Hurtree travels to Sweden to discover more information...
He soon finds himself working with Police commissioner Sara Markham to solve the puzzle of the murders, but along the way they uncover the secret identity of an elderly woman living in southern Stockholm.
As the crime unravels, it becomes clear that this woman’s life is in immediate danger, and it will be a race against time to save her.
Through entwining both the past and the present, Jon Stenhugg captures the mystery of the novel and creates suspense until the very end.
How are the murder victims connected to the past and why is someone after them?
’One of the best I’ve read this year… 8/10’ – Nordic Noir Book Reviews
Jon Stenhugg is a Swedish author, born in California, U.S.A. He graduated from Stockholm University with a degree in Education, Psychology and Statistics.
The Second World War has been over for more a year, when a Nazi war criminal calls U.S. Amy Lt. John Hurtree to his prison cell.
It is the day before he is to be executed and he tries to gain information about the identity of a child in a photograph.
Hurtree refuses to tell him anything, but the question of the child lingers with him and haunts his life for decades after...
Many years later in 1996 in Stockholm, Sweden, the police are investigating the mysterious death of a doctor and his nurse, grabbing Hurtree’s attention once again.
Determined to unravel the mystery that the Nazi war criminal left with him some fifty years ago, Hurtree travels to Sweden to discover more information...
He soon finds himself working with Police commissioner Sara Markham to solve the puzzle of the murders, but along the way they uncover the secret identity of an elderly woman living in southern Stockholm.
As the crime unravels, it becomes clear that this woman’s life is in immediate danger, and it will be a race against time to save her.
Through entwining both the past and the present, Jon Stenhugg captures the mystery of the novel and creates suspense until the very end.
How are the murder victims connected to the past and why is someone after them?
’One of the best I’ve read this year… 8/10’ – Nordic Noir Book Reviews
Jon Stenhugg is a Swedish author, born in California, U.S.A. He graduated from Stockholm University with a degree in Education, Psychology and Statistics.
252 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 20, 2015
"The Second Child" by Jon Stenhugg is a well written and neatly plotted novel - part thriller, part alternate history. It concerns a murder taking place in Sweden in 1996 and the identity of a child in a picture from Germany during the Nazi period. The story takes our investigative team to archives in Germany and Sweden. Thriller fans will be pleaed as the book is well paced and has some excellent suspense.
Although set in fairly recent times the book delves deep into the past and serves some interesting historical details, for example forced sterilisation in Sweden in sync with the racial laws of Nazi Germany.
I personally wished the author had added a concise historical note to let us know how much of the backflashes, archive material and story was fact and what was speculation / fiction.
That caveat aside, the book's premise is original and fascinating and should appeal to fans of WW2 fiction and thrillers alike.
I was given a paperback copy of the book for review
Christoph Fischer - Reviewer for the Historical Novel Society
Although set in fairly recent times the book delves deep into the past and serves some interesting historical details, for example forced sterilisation in Sweden in sync with the racial laws of Nazi Germany.
I personally wished the author had added a concise historical note to let us know how much of the backflashes, archive material and story was fact and what was speculation / fiction.
That caveat aside, the book's premise is original and fascinating and should appeal to fans of WW2 fiction and thrillers alike.
I was given a paperback copy of the book for review
Christoph Fischer - Reviewer for the Historical Novel Society
July 31, 2015
The Second Child Review July 30, 2015
by Robert M. Pacholik
author of NIGHT FLARES, and CRAB LOUIE
Looking for a gripping tale of intrigue set in the mists of time, yet, as current as the governments that stumble all over the planet? Well, pick up Jon Stenhugg’s Nordic noir thriller, ‘The Second Child’, and get buckled in for a thrilling ride.
The Second Child opens in Nuremberg (West Germany) in 1946 where then Army Lt. John Hurtree interviews a Nazi war criminal who is due to be hanged the very next day.
The prisoner is Hermann Schwerlieb, the number two man who reported directly to Adolf Hitler in the closing days of WWII.
Hurtree’s conversation is focused on a single photo of a group of young children playing on the patio of Hitler’s ‘Eagles Nest’ in the Bavarian Alps, near Berchesgarten.
Schwerlieb talks incessantly about smuggling in a gun to him, or a poison pill, so he can kill himself before the hanging. Hurtree wants to know the names and relationships of the children to the Nazi leaders. They spar verbally for hours. No result.
Who is the little girl, second from the left in the picture? Who are her parents? Who took the photos? Is this child still alive? Where is she now? Did she escape? Was she killed? Whose child is she? The questions go on and on.
Those questions and non-answers haunt Hurtree for five decades. Until he retires.
Fast forward to Stockholm, Sweden 1996 where a German-born Swedish doctor is taken to a lonely spot at the edge of the Stockholm airport, and shot dead at close range. Homicide Investigator Sara ‘the Terrier’ Markham wants to know: Who is he? Why was he killed that way there? What reasons motivated the killer to strike? Why now? And Who ordered the hit?
Then days later, an elderly ex-German nurse living in Sweden is pushed in front of a subway train? Who was she? How did she get here? Why was she killed? What did she know? Who did it? Is there a connection to the doctor? Who knows about all of this? And how far will Sara go to solve these two crimes?
The race is on now to find out, and Stenhugg in 41 brisk chapters, drops clues, adds blind alleys, inserts tips, hints, and secretive people both inside and outside the government who don’t want the answers. Nor do they want Sara to find the answers either.
Stenhugg (aka John Clewett, a Swedish citizen, a member of The California Writer’s Club, and The Historical Novel Society), delivers more bodies, clever twists and turns, and more facts to muddy the waters. Repeatedly.
Documents about an old woman living in Stockholm are suddenly declared, SECRET by the government. Sweden’s NSS, the equivalent of America’s CIA knows, but…tells little. Another body is found in a city park. Now there are two or three killers?
Add to the doings a secret German post-war group, ‘The Iron Guard’ that waits in the shadows to ‘terminate’ more players, lose, destroy, or compromise more evidence, and throw Sara off the scent? Or kill her and the investigation, directly?
Where is this all going? Who’s not talking? And what is the aging Hurtree doing back in Sweden as a retiree nosing around?
Again, Hurtree lured back into the tangled history of this little girl, and Sara, assemble pieces that seem to lead to…Where?
Flashback to false identities of dead people, a Nazi locket, dangerous flights out of Germany in April 1945, even as Hitler is marrying Eva Braun his mistress in a Berlin bunker, then he shoots her, and himself. Or not?
Now the secret men are closing in on the old woman, and have orders to terminate her. Or not? Are Sara, Hurtree, and the others trying to save, or silence, this 68 year old woman?
Who does what to who? Does it end happily, or with some bitterness and sadness? Does Sara…? Does Hurtree get…? Another shooting? Do they get caught? Will they…?
Only the readers of The Second Child will be able to parse the story, and the details, and untangle the tangled web of war, death, and the puzzles of history.
This is one book that deserves Four Stars. Not just stars, Gold Stars for this mystery of the Who? And the Whys?
“Now, keep all of this to yourself. Or you too could be in danger. Will you?”
###
NOTE: Jon Stenhugg and I will begin a five-city Book Tour in Scandanavia for The Second Child and Night Flares: Six Tales of the Vietnam War in 10 days!!
February 11, 2016
Although I can't consider myself a fan of the alternate history genre, I think that this book has an interesting take on the global history and one of its notorious leaders.
When we think of our historical past, we usually tend to focus on the prominent people and their deeds, like Hitler and his utopia of a unified racial community. We could also wonder, for a change -- after the bad guys had vanished, and the world had taken its course as we know it, what happened to their lovers and their children? Or, what could've happened to them if things had played out differently?
Without spoiling it too much, I'll just say that with the help of this book you'll be able to speculate on that. And you'll do so alongside some strong, intelligent characters from Swedish Police and National Security Services who would put every waking hour of their lives to gather evidence and connect the threads. All that with the help of one extremely lovable side-kick, a US Army retiree John Hurtree.
Just one of those books that leaves you hoping to read "to be continued" on its last page, to see the team tackling other investigative challenges.
When we think of our historical past, we usually tend to focus on the prominent people and their deeds, like Hitler and his utopia of a unified racial community. We could also wonder, for a change -- after the bad guys had vanished, and the world had taken its course as we know it, what happened to their lovers and their children? Or, what could've happened to them if things had played out differently?
Without spoiling it too much, I'll just say that with the help of this book you'll be able to speculate on that. And you'll do so alongside some strong, intelligent characters from Swedish Police and National Security Services who would put every waking hour of their lives to gather evidence and connect the threads. All that with the help of one extremely lovable side-kick, a US Army retiree John Hurtree.
Just one of those books that leaves you hoping to read "to be continued" on its last page, to see the team tackling other investigative challenges.
August 29, 2015
Fast-paced, setting-enriched novel that follows the intriguing questions dogging Hitler to this day.
Read
February 19, 2020So, I read the free chapters in the Kindle store, deciding if I should buy and read this. I decided not to, which is why I set it as did-not-finish and dont give it a rating.
There were several reasons why I decided not to finish it, with the main reason being that the story never grabbed me, which is caused by several things:
1. I assume that "the second child" in the picture is supposed to be a mystery, and maybe adding some suspense to the story, making the reader yearn to learn who it is. Well, it doesnt. It is very obvious who the child is (and feel free to spoil the book if I am mistaken)
2. Admittedly, English isnt my first language, and maybe my grasp of the language is too bad, but to me writing felt "clumsy" i.e. there was no real flow in the text, and I sometime stopped myself, asking myself if you should really write it like that. One example: "Stockholm, Sweden Summer, 1996" which I felt should have some separator between "Sweden" and "Summer". There is also words like "stripped" instead of "striped" and "skol" (rather than "skoal") for the swedish word "skål"
3. Bad proofreading (which is connected to issue 2, where "stripped" would have been found with some proofreading. Another example is when a police says they "cancelled the car" when they are talking about surveillence. Or maybe they were using a car for surveillence, but that is never mentioned.
4. The writer doesnt seem to have been doing much research. First of it is Schwerlieb who he puts as former Reichsmarschall, but I can not find any prominent leader in the nazi leadership with that name, and the only two Reichsmarschall appointed were Goering and later Dönitz. That part I could tolerate, as a sort of "what if, alternate history" thing, but then the lack of research starts to pile up. For example, he claims that the professor wants to take a cab to the central station to take the express to Arlanda. The problem is that the story is in 1996 and Arlanda express opened 1999. We have the description of Sundbyberg (and Duvbo) which doesnt match what it looked like in 1996. He claims that the sun rises at 2 am, but it never rises that early in Stockholm. A lot of small things, that would be easy to check if the author had just done some research.
5. More on research: he mentions the "National security service" which makes me wonder who he means. He probably means "SÄPO" but their english title is "Swedish Security Service" (and I can find no mention of them having another name in 1996). If he meant "Rikskriminalpolisen" (who existed back then) their english title is "National Criminal Police". It is of course possible that I have the wrong information here, but since the name "National security service" caught my attention (since I couldnt recognize the title) I did do a bit of research myself and found no support for using this name. Also, I wonder: the author claims that there are cameras in the toilet stalls at Arlanda. I very highly doubt that, but I didnt have time to research it.
6. The characters are very stereotype, and male. The female police officer, Sara, describes another woman, Karin, as "... a blond thirty-year-old with an attractive figure ...". I highly doubt that a woman would describe another woman that way, not even if she is lesbian (her sexual orientation were not mentioned in the part of the book that I read). Another character, also police, takes the first chance to steal something from evidence, being the stereotype of a dirty cop (and clearly not knowing the procedure since Sara gos through the documentation and realises it is missing)
So, the writing doesnt catch me, and the characters doesnt feel interesting (or even fully fleshed humans) and there is no pull from the story (if there is a story) so buying the book and finishing it felt like a waste of time.
Since I didnt finish I wont rate it. If you get curious about the book, do the same thing I did: you can read the three first chapters (plus the start of chapter 4 and the prologue) on Kindle. Maybe the things bugging me doesnt bother you the same way.
There were several reasons why I decided not to finish it, with the main reason being that the story never grabbed me, which is caused by several things:
1. I assume that "the second child" in the picture is supposed to be a mystery, and maybe adding some suspense to the story, making the reader yearn to learn who it is. Well, it doesnt. It is very obvious who the child is (and feel free to spoil the book if I am mistaken)
2. Admittedly, English isnt my first language, and maybe my grasp of the language is too bad, but to me writing felt "clumsy" i.e. there was no real flow in the text, and I sometime stopped myself, asking myself if you should really write it like that. One example: "Stockholm, Sweden Summer, 1996" which I felt should have some separator between "Sweden" and "Summer". There is also words like "stripped" instead of "striped" and "skol" (rather than "skoal") for the swedish word "skål"
3. Bad proofreading (which is connected to issue 2, where "stripped" would have been found with some proofreading. Another example is when a police says they "cancelled the car" when they are talking about surveillence. Or maybe they were using a car for surveillence, but that is never mentioned.
4. The writer doesnt seem to have been doing much research. First of it is Schwerlieb who he puts as former Reichsmarschall, but I can not find any prominent leader in the nazi leadership with that name, and the only two Reichsmarschall appointed were Goering and later Dönitz. That part I could tolerate, as a sort of "what if, alternate history" thing, but then the lack of research starts to pile up. For example, he claims that the professor wants to take a cab to the central station to take the express to Arlanda. The problem is that the story is in 1996 and Arlanda express opened 1999. We have the description of Sundbyberg (and Duvbo) which doesnt match what it looked like in 1996. He claims that the sun rises at 2 am, but it never rises that early in Stockholm. A lot of small things, that would be easy to check if the author had just done some research.
5. More on research: he mentions the "National security service" which makes me wonder who he means. He probably means "SÄPO" but their english title is "Swedish Security Service" (and I can find no mention of them having another name in 1996). If he meant "Rikskriminalpolisen" (who existed back then) their english title is "National Criminal Police". It is of course possible that I have the wrong information here, but since the name "National security service" caught my attention (since I couldnt recognize the title) I did do a bit of research myself and found no support for using this name. Also, I wonder: the author claims that there are cameras in the toilet stalls at Arlanda. I very highly doubt that, but I didnt have time to research it.
6. The characters are very stereotype, and male. The female police officer, Sara, describes another woman, Karin, as "... a blond thirty-year-old with an attractive figure ...". I highly doubt that a woman would describe another woman that way, not even if she is lesbian (her sexual orientation were not mentioned in the part of the book that I read). Another character, also police, takes the first chance to steal something from evidence, being the stereotype of a dirty cop (and clearly not knowing the procedure since Sara gos through the documentation and realises it is missing)
So, the writing doesnt catch me, and the characters doesnt feel interesting (or even fully fleshed humans) and there is no pull from the story (if there is a story) so buying the book and finishing it felt like a waste of time.
Since I didnt finish I wont rate it. If you get curious about the book, do the same thing I did: you can read the three first chapters (plus the start of chapter 4 and the prologue) on Kindle. Maybe the things bugging me doesnt bother you the same way.
January 10, 2018
This story was a good historical fiction, alternate history and murder mystery mixture. It gives you a background history right after the Nuremburg trials. Hitler's number 2 in command was going to be executed. He gave a CID agent a picture. The picture was of some little children, but the second female child was kept a mystery. Fast forward to Stockholm Sweden in 1996. The Swedish police are investigating two murders, a doctor and a nurse. The murders are connected to the female child in the picture, but I will not spoil the story. My favorite character was Dolphin. She was a severely autistic lady in her 60's. I felt so sorry for her. The Swedish government debated on sterilization. The mental hospital closed and she was forced to live on her own. Results were not good. This story also shows the sleazy part about politics in a police investigation. If it looked bad for the government, the investigation stopped. I was disappointed in the setting. I felt the author could have described Stockholm much better, he just listed some towns around it. This felt like an American story set in Stockholm. I got a little bored, focus was mostly on police procedure and too much focus on the Iron Guard. The ending was quite a shock. It left you thinking, do I believe the history books. Did Hitler's mistress, Eva make it out of Germany alive? Did the Russians ID the body correctly?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews