Swann's War, Oren - B+

                       This superb novel is set on the fictional island of Fourth Cliff off the Massachusetts coast in 1944. Mary Beth Swann, a former officer with the Boston PD, is acting as the island's only police officer because her husband, the police force's only captain, is a major in the Marines and fighting in the Pacific. There are approximately 100 Italian POW's who are imprisoned on the island. They work at various jobs and are relatively free to travel to them. Over the course of the year, four are murdered and Mary Beth cannot sort it out. Both the FBI and later the Mafia try to solve the murders and fail. Just as the war is winding down in Europe the following year, she connects the one clue she has with a member of the US Army crew acting as coastal watchers. The American is twisted by hatred for the prisoners. This book highlights the fact that, just like the Japanese-Americans in the west, throughout the country Germans and Italians were also imprisoned and placed under house arrest. One couple placed under house arrest in San Francisco were Joe DiMaggio's parents. Lastly, and amazingly, the author is the former Israeli ambassador to the US.