Karolina’s Twins by Ronald H. Balson; St. Martin’s Press; © 2016; ISBN 9781250-098375; 308 pages; $25.99
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – This novel intertwines a Holocaust survival tale with the combination of a detective mystery and a court room drama. Three stories in one.
Lena Woodward, 89, engages attorney Catherine Lockhart and her husband, detective Liam Taggart, to find “Karolina’s twins,” with whom she and Karolina were separated 70 years earlier during the Holocaust. She said she made a promise to her girlfriend Karolina to find the twins, and now she feels she must act upon that promise.
Before Lena would provide details of the fateful moments when she and Karolina were with the twins, she insisted that Catherine and Liam listen to a full account of her life before and during the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, Lena’s son Arthur engaged another lawyer to put a stop to the quest. Arthur believes that his mother has become mentally incompetent, and that she is frittering away the family’s inheritance in an effort to track down non-existent people, whom she merely had hallucinated. The son accused the lawyer-detective couple of simply trying to milk fees from the old lady.
A court hearing is held to see if there is any truth to the charges against Catherine and Liam. But when the judge inquires about the general nature of their work for the client, Catherine declines to answer, citing client privilege. The judge threatens to cite Catherine for contempt of court, and gives her a few days to reconsider her course of action.
Meanwhile, Lena finally arrives at the point in her story when she is willing to provide specifics to the couple, who have by then earned her trust. Upon hearing the traumatic details of Lena’s and Karolina’s separation from the twin babies, Liam jumps into action, racing not only against the odds of all-but-forgotten history, but also against the court-imposed deadline.
I found myself disbelieving that a detective like Liam, knowing that time was of the essence in a case such as this, would sit idly for days until the Lena arrived at the critical point in her story. I would imagine that Liam would have urged Lena to immediately relate the details of the separation so he could get an earlier start on his detective work. In my opinion, the novel would have rung truer if Liam had suggested that Catherine could fill him in later on the back story, while stressing that if he were to be of any use to Lena, he needed to get started right away.
Despite my reservation about the novel’s construction, the story is a good one, with much to recommend it.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the United States.)