By Steven Roger Fischer

Arnold Simon’s “A Break in the Storm” (Noldan Publishing, 2004) conjures up the world of Brussels in 1935-1936 - a worried world, a bruised and vulnerable world. Hearts recoiled at the very mention of The Great War. That past horror still lay too close, was yet too painful. Too many friends and relations had died. Old enemies were hardly forgiven.

Little wonder, then, that all of Europe was listening with heightened emotions to what was now coming from the Germany of this new Herr Hitler, threatening renewed terrors.

Enter Behrndt, a high-principled young man raised amid Germany’s post-World War I misery who, seduced by Hitler’s promise of revenge and glory, joins the Nazi Party and arrives in Brussels to assume a posting on behalf of his government. He falls for brilliant but trusting Lise, an “unusually pretty young woman” of German-Jewish extraction.

Enter Steeg, Behrndt’s difficult and ruthless superior, equally attracted to Lise, who hides a terrible secret. Enter André, who as a Belgian child had witnessed the mass execution of his family and neighbors in The Great War.

Simon has brilliantly conjured up a fertile and deadly cast of characters. Each plays out the present while evoking and heralding past and future. Each rushes “during this respite between two storms” to fulfill his or her wild destiny.

A master of historical fiction, Simon has sensitively captured the mood of the era, the dread underlying each daily pursuit, the passion striving to soar free, the resentment and suspicion clouding each relationship, the hatred kindled from past atrocity or blistering in present bigotry. The reader can only sympathize with Behrndt’s passionate dilemma, empathize with André’s fierce rage, identify with Lise’s sense of betrayal when, daring to step beyond the precipice, her entire world suddenly crumbles. Behind everything lurks the frosty Steeg, that greater-than-life specter of past and future horrors.

Simon’s prose is tense and unyielding, his historic recreation utterly tangible, his human drama - scene after breathless scene - gripping and compelling. A “Break in the Storm” offers the gamut: credible history, riveting drama and a profound message for all ages. It is available at www.abreakinthestorm.com.

Linguist and historian Steven Roger Fischer is the author of “Glyphbreaker” and several other books.