Adventures of Hiram Hollidayby Paul Gallico | |
| Category: |
"Fiction - General" |
|---|---|
| Pages: | 295 |
| Year of Publication: | 1939 |
| Date Added: | 02/21/2021 |
| Date Read: | 03/08/2023 |
| Notes: | Armed Serviced Edition Hiram Holliday is a quiet man who works as a copy editor at a New York newspaper. Everyone who knows him thinks—when they think of him at all—as a friendly, competent nobody. They don't know that Hiram dreams of great things and spends his nights and weekends preparing for them by taking lessons in fencing, shooting, flying, etc. On a vacation to London, he sees four men attempt to kidnap a young boy, Peter, who is in a park with a young woman. Hiram jumps to their aid and fights off the men with his umbrella. The woman is Heidi, an Austrian princess, the boy is her nephew, the heir to the Austrian throne, and the bad guys are Nazis. Hiram helps them escape to Paris. He is disgusted by the politics of Europe where the Germans have everyone living in fear and writes a story about it. His editor sends him to Paris to write more articles. He soon draws the attention of the Nazis and has to escape to Vienna dressed as a clown. There he meets Heidi again, just as the Germans find her and kidnap Peter. Hiram determines to find him. He tracks him to Germany where he gets involved with the mistress of a top Nazi. Hiram is sentenced to death but rescued at the last minute when the mistress sacrifices herself for him. Hiram goes back to Austria and manages to find Peter and reunite him with Heidi, with whom Hiram is in love. With the Nazis on their tail, they make a daring escape over the Alps into Italy. Again, Hiram's stories get him in trouble and he is challenged to a duel. A German assassin shoots him during the duel, but he survives. On his way back to the U.S., finally, he discovers Heidi and Peter on the ship. Heidi is there for him. |
| My Rating: | 8 |
Reviewed by Roger on 2023-03-08 18:57:36
