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Gidwitz, Adam

Max in the Land of Lies

352 pp. | Dutton | February, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9780593112113 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780593112120 $10.99
(1) YA Operation Kinderspion series. This sequel picks up where Max in the House of Spies (rev. 3/24) ended, with just-turning-thirteen Max parachuting into Nazi Germany on a mission for the British ­government—although his own motives are primarily personal: to find and rescue his Jewish parents. The ­British have tasked Max with infiltrating the “Funkhaus,” the center of operations for Dr. Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda, which Max manages thanks to his prodigious radio-repair skills. From there, it’s a quick, suspension of disbelief–laden progression to meeting Goebbels and then Hitler himself; Max also draws the terrifying attention of two high-level Nazi officers. In between these high-octane situations, he interacts with ordinary Germans, learning the stories both of enthusiastic Nazi supporters and of reluctant collaborators. Throughout, he has illuminating conversations with the invisible “immortal hitchhikers” who occupy his shoulders: dybbuk Stein and kobold Berg. Is Max becoming a monster like the bullies in his Hitler Youth group when (to avoid being outed as a Jew) he bashes one of them with a rock? And, yes, it’s true that other countries have done much evil, but the Nazis have “created a whole nation committed to evil. Doesn’t that feel different?” Stein and Berg also feature prominently in the novel’s most moving scene, set in a concentration camp. This twist, and two more involving Max’s adoptive uncles, are brilliantly engineered by Gidwitz and feel entirely organic. Extensive back matter includes brief bios of the real-life Germans and Britons portrayed; more information about the Funkhaus, Hitler Youth, and Sachsenhausen concentration camp; and an annotated bibliography.
Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2025

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