The Boy with the Star Tattoo by Talia Carner; New York: HarperCollins Publishers © 2024; ISBN 9780062-325777; 403 pages plus postscript, author’s note, acknowledgments, and glossary; $19.99
SAN DIEGO – In 1968, a year after the Six-Day War had changed the course of history for Israel and its Arab neighbors, France declared an arms embargo on the Middle East, placing in limbo the last five of 12 patrol boats that Israel had purchased from a shipyard in Cherbourg, France.
History records that Israel was able to fool French authorities and liberate its own boats from impoundment.
Against this background, author Talia Carner weaves a fictional story about Sharon, an Israeli operative involved in Operation Noa, who searches for information about the life of her long-dead mother. A natural-born sleuth, Sharon also decides to investigate the parentage of an Israeli Navy captain for whom she feels a romantic attraction.
The highly readable novel juxtaposes three stories: 1) love and survival in Vichy France; 2) Jewish efforts shortly after World War II to find European Jewish orphans who could be brought to Eretz Israel; and 3) the aforementioned drama of Israel “stealing” its own ships from under the eyes of the French.
Author Carner does not tell these stories sequentially, but rather alternates the chapters so that they at first seem to be unrelated parallel tales. Somewhere past the middle point of the book, the three stories begin to coalesce into a single drama.
The title of the book refers to a child in the novel who could not be circumcised in wartime, but whose mother wanted to be sure he would always be identified with the Jewish people.
The novel was well-researched and dramatically executed. I eagerly anticipated learning how it would end, and yet, paradoxically, I didn’t want it to end because it was such enjoyable reading.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.