Richard H. Balson

Defending Britta Stein is a gripping legal thriller that takes place in Chicago during 2018. Britta Stein is a 92-year-old woman who has a tiff with Chicago's beloved 95-year-old tavern owner Ole Hendryks. When it was publicly announced that Ole was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Danish American Association of Chicago, Britta spray-paints insults in the middle of the night on the exterior of his tavern The Melancholy Dane. Britta exposes Ole as a Nazi collaborator during show more the Nazi occupation of Denmark with her insults. Attorney Catherine Lockhart is asked by a lawyer friend, Walter Jenkins, to represent her in a $5,000,000 defamation lawsuit filed by Ole. Ole Hendryks has retained a high priced lawyer named Sterling Sparks from the prestigious Jenkins and Fairchild law firm. Sparks' nickname is Six O'Clock Sparks because he is an aggressive publicity hound. A former law clerk of Walter's, Emma Fisher, is Britta's grand-daughter and she accompanies Britta to her appointments with Catherine as well as does research for Catherine.

Ole Hendryks has had an old photograph of him and his father posted in his restaurant for fifty years. He claims that in 1943 his family helped hundreds of Jews escape from the gas chambers during WWII. Ole and his father snuck Jewish families out of Denmark in their fishing boat in the middle of the night heading toward Sweden. He has been labeled a hero by his customers as well as the media. However, Britta Stein has alleged that Ole did not rescue any Jews but in fact helped gather Jews for deportation by the Nazis. She also said that the family's name is Hendrickson, not Hendryks. The lawsuit is being heard by a no nonsense judge, Obadiah Wilson, in the Cook County Circuit Court Law Division. With Catherine's husband Liam Taggart investigating Hendryk's background in Denmark the defense of Britta Stein begins.

This story was captivating from the beginning. I couldn't put it down even on the day I needed to shop for my Thanksgiving dinner. While I got to the store in late afternoon, the book was satisfying enough for me to keep thinking about it for the rest of the day. The plot follows the work that Catherine is doing on Britta's case. Most of that work involves interviewing Britta to get her side of the story. Britta insists on taking her time telling her story even though Catherine only has 3 weeks to get ready for trial. The interview takes 100 pages but is very entertaining. Unfortunately, what Britta reveals about life in Denmark under German occupation actually happened. The rest of the story, including the characters, is fiction. I loved that the 1943 photo of Ole and his father in front of their boat turned out to be proof that he was a Nazi collaborator. Because Catherine cannot prove Britta's allegations, she uses an in court strategy that tricks Ole into telling the truth.

Awesome read! 5 out of 5 stars. show less

A Place to Hide, Ronald H. Balson, author; Fred Berman, narrator
The story is told through the eyes of Theodore Hartigan, a man in his nineties who has never truly revealed his past to his family, Now, before he “shuffles off this mortal coil, he wants to tell them his story. He tells it to a former journalist, Karyn Sachnoff, one of the rescued children of the Holocaust who is searching for her missing sister. The book she will write about him and his experiences will be in exchange for show more any help he can provide in her quest.
Born in Washington DC, to a prominent political family, Teddy is anointed with a job in the State Department there. Then, with Hitler’s rise to power and the slow revelation of his draconian policies, he is offered a promotion to head up a division processing visas and is sent to the office in Amsterdam, Holland. It is growing more difficult to fill positions there because of the fear engulfing the nation, especially for Jews, even those who are citizens of America. Germany is on its own death march, but it will take millions with it.
As Teddy, with his photographic memory and feisty personality, tells his story to Karyn, her own sparse memories are awakened, and so as they develop a very warm relationship, and they provide a service to each other. His story begins in DC when he is planning his wedding and continues until he finds his way out of occupied Holland. His isolationist father and the politicians with whom he associates are in sharp contrast to those with whom Teddy becomes involved politically, socially and romantically in Amsterdam. As he becomes more and more involved with the plight of the Jewish people and the resistance movement to help them, he reveals another part of history of which few are aware.
When I closed this novel, there was not a dry eye in the theater of my mind. Using Theodore Hartigan, an American State Department employee who is made up out of whole cloth, as the mechanism to tell the story of what happened to the Jews and other citizens of Holland during World War II, the author has written a well-researched history of the times, that works well, though at times it is a little contrived and even melodramatic in order to make its point. Throughout the entire book, I was challenged with the need to find out which, if any, of the characters were real. I discovered that my knowledge of the Holocaust had deep holes of which I was unaware. I knew about lots of underground fighters, I knew about the kinder transport, but there was so much more that I didn’t know about the situation for the Jews in Holland, about a situation which could have affected me and those I know. Of course, like most everyone, I know about the diaries of Anne Frank, but how many, like me, have never heard of Henrietta Pimental? Whoever heard of Walter Suskind? Does Alice Cohn ring a bell? Yet all of these heroes/heroines, saved hundreds of Jewish children during the war. Parents had a terrible choice to make when they knew they were going to their deaths, but at least there were people and groups that had organized to help them to willingly give up their children, in order to save them.
With the current rise in antisemitism, the disgraceful cries of genocide levied against Israel coupled with other dishonest accusations against the only safe haven Jews have ever had, only established after WWII, this novel is timely and far more important than it would have been at any other time. Hopefully, it will encourage people to learn more, as I did, and will put an end to the hate and the vitriol in the news and social media and to the violence on the streets, that is once again rising against the Jewish people, innocent of any crime except that they are perceived as different and their remarkable success through hard work and ingenuity is resented by those less successful.
The world has seen great progress due to the work and talent of Jews around the world, and the world has been robbed of an untold amount of talent and ingenuity because of The Holocaust. Once again, there are those who want to rob the world of the gifts that the people of the book so willingly share. At times, the book is maudlin, at times it even seems naive, but always, it seems authentic. show less

What a great and beautiful story! I was captivated by it and hated to put the book down. There's sleuthing, a murder mystery, historical fiction, courtroom drama, love, sacrifice, struggle, hatred, and redemption. It hit all of my favorite buttons.

The story opens in July, 2017, with a sleazy Italian lawyer working for a German company trying to force an old woman off her land and claiming that the company he works for is the rightful owner of said property. She's furious and calls on her show more only living relative, a nephew and restaurateur in Chicago, for help. He then bribes his dear friends who happen to be a happily married couple - detective Liam Taggart and phenom lawyer, Catherine Lockhart - with a Tuscan vacation at a villa near Siena - all expenses paid - in exchange for looking into Aunt Gabi's dire situation.

At first blush, Aunt Gabi doesn't appear to have a leg to stand on and may soon have to relinquish the property on which she has lived for nearly eight decades. Thrilled for receiving the added assistance, Aunt Gabi sends a copy of a Berliner Jewish woman's memoir to help Catherine get a better handle on Aunt Gabi's frustration and belief in her absolute right of ownership. Even the local judge sided with the corporation, given the evidence on hand and Gabi's attorney's lack of showing up in court. Liam and Catherine are not easily intimidated or dissuaded from digging deeper into the matter. They find a young bright female lawyer who is eager to serve and deliver justice in her part of the world.

It is the WWII memoir of violinist Ada Baumgarten which truly pushes all of the emotion hot buttons. While preparing a performance of Mahler's 3rd Symphony, I was reading a particularly difficult and heart wrenching passage while listening to the tremendously moving 6th movement of the symphony. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I could barely read the words through the wet curtain of sorrow. (Emotional music will do that to me every time. Just take away the music track of a movie and suddenly the whole story falls flat.) Yet in spite of all the difficulties Ada encounters and the challenges she and her family endure, she somehow still finds hope.

Author Ronald H. Balson spins a spectacular yarn in this 5th installment of the Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart series. As a lawyer himself, he knows the jargon and the legal details needed for such a story. But beyond that, he is a masterful storyteller and a tremendous writer. I was transported back in time and silently walked alongside the characters as they strolled down Berlin's, Bologna's and Rome's streets. The visuals were spectacularly described and the tension, palpable.

If you enjoy a good mystery, solidly researched historical fiction and great courtroom drama, then I highly recommend this book to you. show less

When Ben and Otto were kids, Ben’s Jewish family took in a German boy, Otto, and raised him for a number of years. Shortly before WWII broke out, it was decided that Otto would be safer if he left the Jewish family to work with the Nazis. When Ben is in his 80s and living in Chicago, he comes face-to-face with well-known artist Elliot Rosenzweig, who claims to also be a Holocaust survivor, but Ben recognizes him as Otto and won’t back down. Ben hires lawyer Catherine to help prove that show more Elliot and Otto are one and the same.

I really liked this story. I wasn’t always crazy about Ben, nor was I crazy about Elliot. I agreed with Catherine through the first half that Ben had zero proof whatsoever and I felt like she was wasting her time – as a lawyer, she doesn’t have a lot of extra time. Unlike Catherine, who came around, I still felt through the entirety of the book that Ben had zero proof and was exasperated with him many times. However, yes, he had a compelling story, no question about it. Overall, I still really liked the book and am giving it a “very good” rating, but I also didn’t cry, which is surprising for me. Oh, just as an fyi (though it has no bearing on my rating one way or the other), I listened to the audio. show less