Never Hollowed By The Stare

Unhinge the Universe – Aleksandr Voinov & L.A. Witt

SS Lieutenant Hagen Friedrichs is the sole survivor of a party sent to retrieve his brother—and the highly sensitive information he’s carrying—from behind enemy lines. But his daring rescue attempt fails, and Hagen becomes the prisoner.

Allied command has ordered Captain John Nicholls to extract critical intelligence from their new Nazi POW. His secrets could turn the tide of the war, but are they real? John is determined to find out … and to shatter the prisoner who killed his lover during the attack on their tiny base. The deeper he digs, though, the more he realizes that the soldier under the SS uniform is just like him: a scared, exhausted young man who’s lost loved ones and just wants to go home.

As captor and captive form an unexpected bond, the lines quickly blur between enemy, friend, and lover. And as horrifying rumors spread from the front lines and American soldiers turn their sights on the SS for vengeance, John may be Hagen’s only hope for survival.

I’m a science major but for me, the most important thing I learned from my university is not quantum mechanics or any major science stuff but perspective. From whose perspective is a piece written? For whom it it written? This is what particularly attracts me to Aleksandr Voinov’s works set in WWII. Germans were the bad guys at that time as everybody knows so to have the point of view of Nazi soldiers from a German writer is definitely something. It is also an added bonus that Voinov is a great writer. I totally loved Witches of London – Eagles Shadow and Skybound was beautiful so I was excited to read Unhinge the Universe.

This is an enemies-to-lovers story revolving around Hagen an SS officer and John an American military captain who interrogates him. And the story is really just the two of them with barely any memorable secondary characters (Siegfried and Michael don’t count because they were just there to make these people feel something).

I was disappointed with Hagen. After what John was saying about the SS being the worst type of prisoner, I expected Hagen to be all subtle menace and mind games (ala Hans Landa) but heck, he squealed at the slightest provocation. Even after John felt the predator/prey relationship seemed reversed, I didn’t feel any danger. Ok, maybe I should give the guy a break, he had a rough day and also maybe that was the point, that he was not a monster but I couldn’t help feeling let down after all that build up. I was also looking forward to John being a terror of an interrogator but meh, he was too nice. He was stroking the prisoner’s head tenderly for crying out loud. Ok, this is my fault for approaching a book the wrong way and watching too many Tarantino movies.

There were some pretty tight, intense scenes in the book especially those involving razors. The hospital scene was pure fluff <3 But sometimes I wondered if they became attracted to each other only because they discovered they were both men who notice men. If they met at a different time and place, would they be together?

Overall, points for the history and backdrop but story-wise, the book didn’t really unhinge anything.

Rating:

3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked it

Soundtrack: Superhumans
Artist: The Flaming Lips
Album: Transmissions from a Satellite Heart

(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31133156-unhinge-the-universe)