The Serpent Bearer
Filled with spies and individuals who are willing to fight to the death, The Serpent Bearer is an elaborate, exciting World War II romantic thriller.
In Jane Rosenthal’s historical novel The Serpent Bearer, a veteran has thrilling experiences—and a splash of romance—as a spy.
Solly, a Jewish Spanish Civil War veteran, returns to South Carolina, consoling himself over the loss of the woman he loved and an entire brigade of soldiers with whom he feels he should have perished. Then Solly is enlisted to join a new United States spy agency whose goal is to ensure that the Germans do not extend their control beyond Europe and take over the United States. Appalled at the discovery of Nazi sympathizers in his hometown and doing little else save gambling, he accepts the assignment.
Most of the action takes place in 1941 in Havana and various locations in Mexico, but there are quite a few flashbacks to an earlier period spent in Madrid. Jumps far into the future to consider Solly’s legacy also occur. In his struggle to accomplish his goal, Solly is joined by a large cast of characters, some propagating the spread of Nazism in the Americas and some trying to stop it. Added to the intrigue is an old romance and the chance of a new one.
The narration alternates among four people: Solly himself; Estelle, the woman whose trail he lost in Spain and whom he still pines over; Grace, the Hollywood screenwriter who is enlisted to organize the details of Solly’s latest position as spy, to whom he becomes attracted; and Izzy, Solly’s daughter, a professor of Mayan history in North Carolina. The shifting narrators add their differing perspectives, enriching the work, but they also lead to a disjunctive timeline. The vast jumps between time periods also muddle the book’s progression early on. Further, some characterizations are archetypal without delving deeper, as with the Jewish character who escaped the concentration camps, the British character who sympathizes with the Germans, and the womanizing German character.
Fascinating impressions of Mexico and Cuba flesh out the period, though, with each scene and location described with emotional resonance. The prose is lucid and colloquial, sometimes moving at a steady crawl and at others racing ahead. There is a tremendous amount of action in scenes filled with spies and individuals who are willing to fight to the death and kill for their goals. The tale’s cloak-and-dagger moments are elaborate but exciting up to the bitter end.
The Serpent Bearer is a gripping thriller set amid World War II history.
Reviewed by
Caroline Goldberg Igra
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