Eagle & Crane

May 1, 2018
Harry Yamada and Louis Thorn work together as stunt pilots--close but competitive friends--until World War II upends their lives.In 1943, an FBI agent named Bonner arrives in Newcastle, California. He's investigating Harry Yamada and his father, Kenichi, who've recently escaped from an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, and wants to know if they've returned to the farm they signed over at the war's outbreak to their neighbor Louis Thorn, at the time Harry's flying partner and now a flight instructor for the Air Corps. As Bonner questions 23-year-old Louis on his front porch, the two men are shocked to watch a plane fall out of the sky in a fiery crash. Inside are two bodies, one identifiable as Kenichi, the other charred beyond recognition but assumed to be Harry. Not long afterward, Ava Brooks, who has supposedly been helping Louis care for the Yamadas' orchard, turns up at the house. Soon the novel is moving back and forth in time, interspersing Bonner's investigation of the crash with the evolving prewar love triangle of Louis, Harry, and Ada--who met in 1940 when the two young pilots joined Ada's con-artist stepfather's barnstorming troupe--as well as with the history of the multigenerational feud between the Yamadas, portrayed as upstanding, almost saintly immigrants, and the struggling, less sympathetic Thorns. Bonner's growing obsession with the case and the mysterious sexual attention he enjoys from the young landlady of a Newcastle boardinghouse are two of the contrived threads with which Rindell (Three-Martini Lunch, 2016, etc.) eventually ties up the flimsy plot. While the Yamadas' unfair treatment clearly alludes to today's immigrant experience, what is more developed is the character study of Louis Thorn, who faces conflicted loyalties and complex moral choices.Overlong and woodenly earnest, without the leavening wit of Rindell's The Other Typist (2013), the novel does cohere in its attempt to plumb the complexities of love and hate.

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May 28, 2018
Rindell’s satisfying third novel (following Three-Martini Lunch) sets a love triangle against WWII and a traveling barnstorming act. In 1943, FBI Agent Bonner arrives at the Newcastle, Calif., home of Louis Thorn to question him regarding the whereabouts of Harry Yamada, his former barnstorming partner, and Harry’s father, Kenichi, who have escaped from a Japanese-American internment camp. Suddenly, Bonner and Louis witness the takeoff and crash of a biplane. Authorities discover two bodies whom they believe are the Yamadas; Bonner suspects sabotage and investigates. The narrative then jumps back to 1940, when the young, plucky Ava Brooks meets Harry and Louis while traveling with her stepfather’s flying circus. She’s drawn to both young men. The narrative toggles back and forth between the early days of Harry and Louis’s daredevil act, the feud between their families, and Bonner’s investigation of Louis in Harry’s disappearance. At times, Rindell’s prose is stilted, and Ava’s con-artist stepfather is over the top. However, Rindell effectively incorporates the forced internment of Japanese-Americans in camps during WWII, and the fraught, complex friendship between Louis and Harry is as riveting as the truth behind the crash. Rindell’s sweeping generational saga will please fans of immersive, meticulously researched historicals.

Starred review from July 1, 2018
Louis Thorn (Eagle) and Harry Yamada (Crane) were childhood friends, although their families detested one another after Louis' grandfather Ennis lost his land in a poker game, and old Mr. Yamada bought it from the winner. By the time the boys join Earl Shaw's Flying Circus in 1940, they are barely speaking, but both love flying, and barnstorming fits their need for adventure. When they both fall in love with the same girl, the scene is set for jealousy and heartbreak, but it's not apparent who will end up together. This story almost reads itself as one's eyes dash across the page to find out what happens. Descriptions of illegal air shows and daring stunts add to the suspense and bring back that shocked awe of watching tiny planes loop the loop and execute barrel rolls. After the Pearl Harbor attack, however, the members of the Yamada family, including Harry, are sent to an internment camp. Two years later, a shocking incident occurs that makes Louis a suspect in an investigation. Masterfully told, completely immersive, with in-depth characters who illustrate the social complexities of the time, this is an unforgettable historical novel, similar in impact to Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from June 1, 2018

Historical fiction fans will delight in this romantic mystery set in World War II California. Louis Thorn and Haruto "Harry" Yamada have grown up as neighbors, despite the Thorn family's claim that the Yamadas, a Japanese immigrant family, stole part of their land. The pair of daredevils become unlikely comrades after joining the Earl Shaw Flying Circus as wingwalkers Eagle and Crane. There they share a love of flying and of Ava, Earl's spunky, independent stepdaughter. Though both partners need the money from their aerial stunts, their relationship is complicated by racial tension, family, and love. In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Harry's family is interned at Tule Lake simply for being Japanese. Then, a mysterious plane crash brings a determined FBI agent to the Yamada home to investigate. Will he uncover the truth or will guilt from his past consume him? VERDICT Rindell joins the ranks of popular historical fiction authors Kristin Hannah and Kate Quinn with this fast-paced, gripping novel that compellingly explores a tumultuous era of 20th-century history. [See Prepub Alert, 3/1/18.]--Laura Jones, Argos Community Schs., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2018

Louis Thorn (the Eagle) and Haruto "Harry" Yamada (the Crane) are an audience-pleasing daredevil act storming through Depression-era California with Earl Shaw's Flying Circus. (And both are crushing on Shaw's stepdaughter.) Then comes Pearl Harbor, and two badly burned bodies found in a crashed plane are assumed to be Harry and his father, who have escaped from a Japanese internment camp. For all of us who liked Rindell's The Other Typist and Three-Martini Lunch.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.