Avalanche

by Kay Boyle
Category: "Fiction - Adventure"
Pages:209
Year of Publication:1944
Date Added:02/18/2021
Date Read:07/04/2023
Notes:Armed Services Edition

Early in WWII, when Vichy was the thing in France, Fenton (who's a young woman, in spite of the ugly name) returns to the village in the Alps where she grew up. She's looking for Bastineau, the man she loves but hasn't heard from in several years. On the train with her is de Vaudois, who claims to be Swiss, looking for a climber who died in an avalanche. What Fenton doesn't realize is that the entire village has been mobilized to help partisans who are helping people escape over the mountains from the Nazis. And since she arrived with de Vaudois, nobody trusts her. She can't get any word of Bastineau, but in the end she finds him and he tells her what he's been up to as the partisan leader. He heads back up to the mountains, and then de Vaudois shows his hand. He captures Fenton and plans on turning her over to the Gestapo, but Bastineau gets winds of it and returns to save her. The book ends with them getting married, but him still carrying on with his activities.
My Rating: 6

Reviews for Avalanche

Review - Avalanche

Considering that it was written during the way when the author couldn't know how things would turn out, it can be excused for some naivety about the war. There was a good story here somewhere, but this wasn't exactly it.
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