Brilliant as usual. Ben Hope at his best. ( )

Dual review with Swedish first and then English!

SWEDISH REVIEW

Först måste jag bara säga att den svenska titeln till boken är inte världens bästa. Hur The Forgotten Holocaust på svenska får titeln Dolda är för mig ett mysterium.

När det gäller berättelsen så var den bra, inte perfekt men jag fann att den till stor del funkade. Då detta är den första boken jag har läst skriven av Scott Mariani så tycker jag personligen att det var enkelt att komma in i handlingen trots att det var bok 10 i serien om Ben Hope. Jag gillar Ben Hope, han är en intressant karaktär. Nu har han "hemma" efter strul med ett inställt bröllop (kan förstå hans ex-fästmö) och det dröjer inte lång tid innan han hamnar mitt i ett mord som har rötter i det förflutna och som kommer att föra honom till Amerika där en kvinna ligger risigt till efter att ha bevittnat något hon skulle mått bra av att inte se.

Jag gillade boken handling. Det var intressant och tragiskt. Men jag tycker att boken förlorade farten runt slutet. Berättelsen funkade bäst när Ben arbetade med att lista ut sanningen om mordet och kom sanningen på spåret. Men när han kom till Amerika som kände jag att berättelsen inte alls flöt på på samma sätt som den hade gjort innan. Nog för att jag gillar spänning och action, men här fann jag att det pågick lite för länge. Dock så gillade jag upplösningen även om jag inte var överväldigad av den. Men jag gillade att man till slut fick svaret på varför så många behövde dö i boken, varför hemligheten var så viktigt att skydda.

Dolda är läsvärd och jag vill läsa fler böcker i serien och tursamt nog har jag en ebook att läsa, men jag lär väl inte komma till den fören 2020 med tanke på hur mycket jag har att läsa.

Tack till HarperCollins Nordic för recensionexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

I want to start by saying that the Swedish title for the book sucks! For some reason, they chose Dolda that means The Hidden as a title. How going from The Forgotten Holocaust to that one is a mystery to me.

As for the story, it was good, not perfectly good, but still enjoyable to read. As a first-time reader of Scott Mariani did the book work quite good, despite this being the 10th book and jumping into a series doesn't always work. But, this time, it did. I quickly found my footing and soon I was caught up in the story about mass murder and atrocity. Ben Hope is an interesting character, he hasn't been back home for a long time before he is pulled into a murder case with roots in the past that will take him to America and a woman that has witnessed something that she would have been better of not have seen.

I liked the big mystery, it was intriguing and tragic. However, I thought the story lost a bit of steam towards the end of the book. I think the story worked best for me at least when Ben was finding out the truth of the murder he couldn't stop at the beginning of the book. When he got to America the story just got a bit less engrossing. I usually like action, but this time, I found it a bit going on and on a bit too long time for my taste. I did like the last minute revelation when you get the big explanation to all the killing explained. Although I was not overwhelmed by it.

The Forgotten Holocaust was a good book. I want to read more of the books in the series and I do have an Ebook waiting for me to get to (around 2020 I think when I see my TBR mountain)

Thanks to HarperCollins Nordic for the review copy! ( )

A fast-paced action adventure thriller, featuring the continuing adventures of Ben Hope. I had read based on its tie-in to An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger) and a LM friend's recommendation to explore this book's take on that event in history. Chapters 20 to 22 explore just that, showing how the English reaction to the famine in Ireland would, in modern days amount to the same thing as a holocaust or genocide. Tons of food left Ireland during the years 1845-1849, but it went to feed the peoples of England and not the starving peoples of Ireland. While Cecil Woodham-Smith explores this fact in historical detail in her master work The Great Hunger, Mariani's character Prof. Brennan explores it with a modern eye and equal weight. Kudos to him for daring to explore this aspect.

On the other hand, the documentation of the potato blight shows that all of Western Europe's potato crop was invaded by this fungus, not just Ireland. Belgium, England, Germany, and I think Poland all had the collapse of their crop to a greater or lesser extent during the end of the 1840's. But the important thing to remember is that only in Ireland was there a famine, as there were other sources of food and governments stepped in to help their hungering populace.

The vast majority of Forgotten Holocaust takes place in an international setting: Ireland, Oklahoma, Madeira and involves his character of Ben Hope searching for answers raised in antique journals. The women he encounters are all smart and tough, and there are plenty of villains who are cunning and, well, villainous. I was struck by similarities between Hope as the loner and the series of Andrew Vachss novels that feature Burke in a similar capacity. Not the same motivation at all, but definitely that lone-wolf, able to solve a multitude of problems that come his way. And probably similar to the Bourne novels (though I've never read them). ( )

This was another thoroughly enjoyable book in the Ben Hope series. I feel in this one the series got much more on track with earlier books in the series, having gone slightly off the boil in the last couple. This one was slightly different than some others in the series, which were more about searching for old relics or treasure. The backdrop to this one was the Irish Potato Famine, or 'starvation' as one character referred to it. This certainly gave me more understanding of this notable historical period in Irish history, it did also postulate a nefarious cause of the whole situation. It has left me wanting to read more serious historical books about this period. Ben was certainly struggling at the start of this book following life-changing recent events, and felt he had let someone he had met down, so he set out for revenge. I certainly wouldn't want to be on Ben's bad side! I liked the way events in the past were linked in with events in Tulsa in the present. I enjoyed the culmination of the book, but still was more fascinated by the historical context and finding out more about the past. I look forward to continuing this series as I need to find out what happens to Ben next. ( )

Fantastic. B****y fantastic! ( )