return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
    The Second Son by Jonathan Rabb

The Second Son: Book summary and reviews of The Second Son by Jonathan Rabb

The Second Son

The Second Son
The Berlin Trilogy #3
by Jonathan Rabb
Published in USA Feb 2011,
304 pages.

Publication information


Critics' Opinion: 
Readers' Rating: 
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book

The Second Son Summary

On the eve of Hitler's Olympics, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, a half Jew, has been forced out of the Kriminalpolizei. Luckily, Hoffner's focus is elsewhere. His son Georg is missing in Spain, swept up in the sudden outbreak of the civil war. He has already lost Sascha, his elder son, who is fully entrenched in the Nazi regime. But Georg is not what he appears to be, and when Hoffner discovers this, he is determined to save the one son he can.

The Second Son is the eagerly awaited final installment in Jonathan Rabb's Berlin trilogy, set between the two world wars. In Harper’s Magazine, John Leonard called the first, Rosa, "a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Malraux." The second, Shadow and Light (2009), garnered rave reviews - in The Washington Post, Wendy Smith praised its "atmosphere" and "brilliantly plotted narrative." Now, nearly ten years after the events of Shadow and Light, Hoffner finds himself tossed into the chaos that is Spain - where he quickly meets anarchists, Soviet and British secret agents, and a female doctor called Mila Pera - as he follows a trail of clues left by Georg.

The Second Son Reviews

"Rabb's gripping conclusion to his Berlin noir trilogy...fans of Alan Furst and Philip Kerr will be rewarded." - Publishers Weekly

"The best-selling success of Furst and Kerr has shown there is an audience for 1930s noir novels, and Rabb's well-written historical thriller will not disappoint." - Library Journal

"The well-researched Civil War details elbow aside the family drama, to the novel's detriment." - Kirkus Reviews

The information about The Second Son shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.

The Second Son Reader Reviews

Write your own review

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Eric Bangor
Great
Loved this book. Great atmosphere. Great story. I'll be reading the other two in the trilogy.

Jonathan Rabb Author Biography

Jonathan Rabb grew up knowing he would be an academic. The son and grandson (on both sides) of historians, Rabb’s world shook at its very core when he opted to try his hand at political theory. As an undergraduate at Yale, Rabb divided his time among Locke and Hobbes and Hegel while spending his more reckless hours singing with the Whiffenpoofs and galloping across stage in such roles as Harry the Horse and a perfectly bean-poled Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. He even went so far as to make his living his first years out of college as an actor in New York before settling on a PhD program at Columbia.

Somehow, though, that was not to be. While in Germany researching the very compelling and very obscure seventeenth-century theorist Samuel von Pufendorf...

... Full Biography

Other books by Jonathan Rabb at BookBrowse

Shadow and Light jacket

Rosa jacket

Recently Published Thrillers

more...


Become a Member
Click Here
Editor's Choice
  •  Jun 19 
  •  Jun 17 
  •  Jun 15 
If You Find Me
Emily Murdoch

If You Find Me Jacket

There are some things you can't leave behind…
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah Jacket

Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Karen Joy Fowler

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Jacket

The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
The Expats by Chris Pavone
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Top Ten Guidelines For How to Behave in a Book Club
Movies Based on Books: Summer 2013 (May - August)
Jewish Themed Young Adult Books, Not About The Holocaust
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
First time novelist Vaddey Ratner captured my heart and senses in this novel based on her childhood in Cambodia. Her story transcends any news story... read more
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years... read more
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Coraline
Neil Gaiman
2. Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden
3. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
4. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
5. Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Katherine Boo
More...
Book Club Recommendations
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
by Maria Semple
Paperback (Apr/13)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
by Rachel Joyce
Paperback (Mar/13)
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards
by Kristopher Jansma
Hardback (Mar/13)
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
by Mohsin Hamid
Hardback (Mar/13)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
Children of the Jacaranda Tree
by Sahar Delijani
4.5 Stars            (Jun/13)
Her Last Breath
by Linda Castillo
4.5 Stars            (Jun/13)
Crime of Privilege
by Walter Walker
Four Stars            (Jun/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate (Jun 12 2013)
Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: We've been discussing guidelines for book club etiquette. Which of these do you think are important?
Read the book
Listen thoughtfully to all members
Take notes while you're reading
Stay on topic when you're speaking
Enjoy yourself
Don’t get drunk
Bring chocolate, everyone likes chocolate!
Eat before you come so you don’t devour the snacks
Compliment others sincerely
Have a good sense of humor
Don’t fret the small stuff
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters

Online Book Club
More about
The Execution of Noa P. Singleton
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
You Only Get Letters From Jail


one of the finest and truest collections of 'American' short stories I have ever read

Enter To Win Now!

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"T M T C, T M T Stay T S"

and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Carol Rifka Brunt
Kent Wascom
Jennifer McVeigh
Elizabeth Becker
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us