Am I alone in finding this book really terribly written? I am no literary fiction snob, far from it, but I thought it was awful. 
 I managed two thirds of it before ditching it. I just couldn't face the idea of it droning on and on with the contrived prose (that'll explain why the book is so long), done-to-death cliches, and ridiculous characters straight out of the 'Big Book of Nasty Nazis' for another several hundred pages. 
 What grated most with me with regard to the prose was that it was, well, extensive, in that he's clearly a writer unafraid to ratchet up the word count in describing a scene, yet at the same time, it managed to be lazy, and uninspiring, too often reaching for the more predictable, formulaic turn of phrase. 
 It is hard to explain this properly, but I was very aware whilst reading it that this was an American depiction of Europe, it just read like someone describing a place in much the style you'd find in a travel magazine, it never really made me think he was describing Europe from any deep knowledge or experience of it. 
 I appreciate that's probably because the author is American, and maybe that's understandable - similarly, you wouldn't expect a British or French author to write the great American novel. Still, it never really made me think I was reading a book written about a place the author had any real experience of, or more importantly, feel for. 
 The Second World War is in one way an 'easy' period in which to set fiction - you have the events of six years, multiple conflicts, set in almost every corner of the globe, to choose from. What's more, it is an era we are very much aware of, having lived through it in many cases, or through the ongoing huge interest in that period (we are still making films about it, 70 years on). 
 On the other hand, it is difficult to get it right, and lots of writers reach for the cliched characters far too easily. The ultra nazi Hitler Youth, the monocle wearing Gestapo man screaming to see someone's papers, the Wehrmacht man dutifully following the orders of his superiors, the whole "for you, Tommy, the war is over thing". 
 Maybe I am just being too sensitive about these things, or overly critical, but for me this book belongs in that category.