
| |

Twelve
Wounds
by Carmen Rodriguez and Steven Lehrer
Published June 2006
Kindle

Trade Paper

SF Tafel Publishers
ISBN-10: 0595401007
ISBN-13: 978-0595401000
196 pages
A young Brooklyn assistant district attorney, Carmen Rodriguez, is called to
investigate the murder of a Hasidic Jew. The Shomrim, the Hasidic community
patrol, apprehended a suspect, Ramon Perez, a few minutes after the murder.
During the course of her investigation, Carmen learns that one of three
eyewitnesses to the crime, Moshe Herz, is mentally unstable and may have a crack
problem. Moshe's landlady tells Carmen that Moshe has a dybbuk.
Tightly plotted, suspenseful, and funny, Twelve Wounds provides a sobering
insight into what sometimes passes for criminal justice in New York City.
Kirkus Review
A put-upon prosecutor investigates a racially charged murder in this spicy legal
drama.
It seems like an open-and-shut case when a Hasidic Jewish man is stabbed to
death on a Brooklyn street, and his alleged assailant, identified by three
witnesses, is caught minutes later by the Hasidic Shomrim foot patrol. It’s
1991, the Crown Heights crime scene is a powder keg of ethnic tension, and the
perp is a Puerto Rican man. The Hasidim want a quick conviction, while the
Hispanic community cries racial profiling. Assistant district attorney Carmen
Rodriguez–used to being on the receiving end of bigoted presumptions–finds
herself navigating a political minefield. Then the witnesses turn out to be
unreliable (one, a Talmudic scholar, seems to be possessed by the spirit of a
dead crack whore), an alibi surfaces for the defendant, a diamond is
mysteriously stolen from the dead man’s safe and Carmen wonders whether she’s
prosecuting the right man. Alas, her commitment to justice often clashes with
her instinct for self-preservation. Carmen’s boss, eager to placate the
politically powerful Hasidim, insists that she sweep the case’s untidy details
under the rug, while cagey defense counsel Pai Ho Wu threatens to publicize
Carmen’s porno pics from her student days unless she reveals prosecution
secrets. Out of Carmen’s travails the authors craft a crime procedural that’s
lively...Most of the trial scenes are handily stolen by the riveting Wu. The
authors stock the story with sharply drawn characters (the eternally kvetching
but tough-as-nails presiding judge is a hoot), cannily observed procedural and
intriguing courtroom twists that will keep readers guessing.
An engrossing tale about the difficulty of discerning justice through the murk
of New York’s melting pot.
From
Lemberg to Bordeaux: A German War Correspondent’s Account of Battle in Poland,
the Low Countries and France, 1939-40
by Leo Leixner
Translated, introduced, and annotated by Steven Lehrer
Published March 2017
Kindle

Trade Paper

SF Tafel Publishers
ISBN-10: 1543059252
ISBN-13: 978-1543059250
506 pages
From Lemberg to Bordeaux is Viennese war reporter Leo Leixner’s account of his
front line experiences, from Poland in 1939 to France in 1940. From Lemberg to
Bordeaux went through four editions and sold in the hundreds of thousands of
copies by 1942. Leixner was assigned to various infantry companies and documents
his moves from one to the next. During attacks he was often at the front.
Leixner is an engaging writer. He had a doctorate in German literature from the
University of Graz, with a thesis entitled Mohammed in German Poetry, and was
himself a poet; indeed, his battle accounts are almost blank verse. Leixner died
while crossing the Kuban River in Russia, 14 August 1942, part of a flotilla. At
5 a.m. he was standing upright in a boat when he was killed with a single shot
through the head.
Tanks
Break Through! A German Soldier’s Account of War in the Low Countries and
France, 1940
by Alfred-Ingemar Berndt
Translated, introduced, and annotated by Steven Lehrer
Published November 2016
Kindle

Trade Paper

SF Tafel Publishers
ISBN-13: 978-1539810971
ISBN-10: 1539810976
321 pages
There are many eye-witness accounts of the military
disaster that led to the fall of France, 1940, from the Allied point of view.
For a look at the experiences of the common German soldier, there is no better
source than Tanks Break Through! written by Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, a journalist
and close associate of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. When the 1940 attack
was in the offing, Berndt joined the Wehrmacht and afterward published his
recollections. Berndt’s memoir is a tale of German military prowess, valor and
violent death, a Teutonic Iliad. His prose is often thrilling and brings to mind
Woody Allen’s remark, “I just can't listen to any more Wagner. I'm starting to
get the urge to conquer Poland.” Hitler sensed French weakness and unwillingness
to fight. Berndt writes of the formidable foe the French faced.
Wartime Sites in Paris: 1939-1945
by Steven Lehrer
Published September 2013
Kindle

Trade Paper

SF Tafel Publishers
ISBN-13: 978-1492292920
ISBN-10: 1492292923
336 pages, table of contents, photographs, index, appendix, bibliography, notes
Paris,
the City of Light, is the most popular tourist destination in Europe. Celebrated
in painting, literature, film, and song, Paris never ceases to delight its
millions of visitors. This book is a guide to historical sites in Paris
associated with the Second World War, which official French histories call La
Guerre 39-45. Understandably, the dark years of the German Occupation are a time
the French prefer not to remember at all. Why should they? Would anyone expect
them to put a plaque on the former Gestapo headquarters at 74, avenue Foch or 9,
rue des Saussaies? As the Resistance developed, screams from the interrogation
rooms kept neighbors awake at night. But these places, all described here, are
harrowing reminders, often unmarked, of a time of humiliation and privation,
unspeakable cruelties and brutal murders, but also of heroism and hope.
"Lehrer is right that Paris, and France more generally, still has not fully come
to grips with its years of occupation and collaboration."
H-Net Reviews
Nesthäkchen
Series
First English edition of the German children's classic
by Else Ury
Translated and annotated by Steven Lehrer
Published July 2014-2016
Trade Paper

SF Tafel Publishers
A
Nesthäkchen is the youngest child in a family. Else Ury's Nesthäkchen is a
Berlin doctor's daughter, Annemarie Braun, a slim, golden blond, quintessential
German girl. The ten book series follows Annemarie from infancy (Nesthäkchen and
Her Dolls) to old age and grandchildren (Nesthäkchen with White Hair).
Else Ury (1877-1943) was a children's author murdered at
Auschwitz. Her books are German literary classics. Steven Lehrer translated
volumes 1-6 of the series.


|