Book Review: The Swiss Courier by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey

*review copy from goodreads*

The Swiss Courier is a dangerous job for Gabi Mueller.  During World War II, Gabi, a Swiss pastor's daughter, is part of the American OSS, helping to translate German missives to English to aid in the Allied cause.  She takes on several dangerous missions, but none quite so dangerous as helping a scientist cross the border into Switzerland.  Gabi will face betrayal and death in order to rescue this important stranger.

Things I Liked:
The story was pretty slow to develop, but I was really drawn into the intrigue and surprises right near the end.  The daring rescue of this scientist kept me turning the pages to its conclusion, but the rescue doesn't happen until the end.  I also enjoyed some of the interesting details of the Swiss people and the part they played during WWII.  I was also somewhat impressed with the religious aspects.  Instead of being beaten over the head with religion, the characters would talk about how God was important to them or how they trusted Him.  It would sometimes sneak up on you that religion was a part of the book.  And that's definitely better than being beaten.

Things I Didn't Like:
I think this book suffers from too much detail.  The authors obviously put in a lot of research and thought, but it was overwhelming.  There was a lot of superfluous information about things that didn't really impact the story.  I got tired of reading the book and set it aside for days at a time.  I wanted to know the conclusion, so I kept plowing through, but I really think it could have been edited to be about half its current page length.  The characters never felt real to me - they were secondary to the historical details and the plot.  I'd only recommend this to hard-core historical/WWII fans who love the extraneous details and aren't really looking for pure entertainment. 

Read-alikes:
For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
A bit like The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !
maybe one or two

mrg-factor: none

v-factor: ->->
there weren't many scenes, but they were pretty descriptive

Overall rating: ***

Do you have a favorite WWII/holocaust book?

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