The Girl in the Blue Beret

The second book I read on vacation was, unfortunately, as disappointing as the first (How I Paid for College...). The story is this: it's 1980(ish) and a former World War II pilot is about to retire from his job as a commercial airline pilot. Forcibly - pilots used to be required to retired at 60. Anyway, to mark his retirement, he decides to visit the Belgian site where he crash landed during the war. Remembering the Belgian and French civilians who helped him and the surviving members of his crew evade the Germans and return to London by way of Spain at great risk to themselves, he moves to France and begins to search for these men and women.

The premise is great and, reading in Paris, which is also the setting for much of the book, the location had much to recommend it as well. Yet, after a strong start, it never really held together. For example, a few characters disappeared completely and others were introduced only to have their stories fizzle or to leave me wondering why they had been introduced. Had two characters truly entered the story only as a way to tell the story of one particular wartime atrocity or was I missing something? Clumsily, in fact, the focus of the story changed, zeroing in on the ruthless and barbaric acts the Germans committed and contemplating the impact these acts had on one particular character - whom we never met.

As quickly as the book changed course, it ends, and in a way that left me completely unsatisfied as a reader. Where had all of these characters gone? Not only was I left with that question (as well as the 'whys' I mentioned earlier, but in many ways I was unclear of even how it was ending. If I thought this were to set-up a sequel, I would be more forgiving, but really it felt like the author (Bobbie Ann Mason) simply grew tired of writing. All in all, I had high hopes when I began reading, and probably through the first half of the book even, but by the end I was confused, frustrated, and disappointed.