The Detour

January 2, 2012
The Third Reich’s Sonderprojekt, to collect the world’s great art, is underway when Romano-Lax’s second novel begins, as 24-year-old curator Ernst Vogler, whose mentor has just been sent to Dachau, goes to Italy to retrieve the famous Discus Thrower statue. The young man’s simple three-day journey goes awry immediately when his local police escorts—brothers Enzo and Cosimo—take a circuitous route to throw off thieves. Enzo wants to pursue a woman, while Cosimo wants the German to see the beauty around them and grows frustrated at Ernest’s stoicism. When tragedy separates the brothers, such concerns take a backseat to survival and protecting the statue for the Führer. Throughout it all, Vogler recalls past incidents as they relate to the Reich, including his father’s obsession with his son’s physique and his mentor’s concern about the world’s art being collected for the benefit of only a few (Vogler’s own view is that “the art would outlive the men” who own it). In following a trio of meanderers, Romano-Lax (The Spanish Bow) brings inertia to her narrative, deflating the foreboding of this German’s imploding assignment. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary.

April 15, 2012
From the author of The Spanish Bow (2007), a somewhat less successful sophomore outing. The task of 26-year-old Ernst Vogler, a minor functionary for the Third Reich's Special Projects division, looks straightforward enough. He's to travel to Rome and oversee the packing of the classical statue The Discus Thrower, recently purchased on the express instructions of Hitler, the former art student known to his underlings as Der Kunstsammler. Then Vogler is to accompany Italian twins Enzo and Cosimo as they transport the statue to the border, where it will be handed over to the Gestapo, and he will get back to the safety of his desk. But things go immediately awry. Vogler, a callow young art expert who favors the "deep, clean, and relatively painless cut of narrow knowledge" to the messiness of politics or larger cultural issues--and who has been tapped for this plum job in part because he appeared, by sheer accident, to have expressed public contempt for a black American athlete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics--finds that he lacks the needed linguistic and cultural skills to navigate languid, un-orderly, sentimental Italy. To avoid a threatened theft or double-cross, his drivers take to rustic side roads, a tactic that slows the pace and jeopardizes Vogler's deadline. Then it becomes apparent that the brothers have higher priorities than the job at hand: romances, marriage proposals, rivalries, a perilous entanglement with criminals. After a series of escalating misadventures, Vogler finds himself marooned in an Italian pastoral family life that may be dolce around the edges, but that is also extremely dangerous. Along the way, though, he surrenders himself both to the adventure and to a surprising (and not quite believable) love. The historical context is fascinating and atmospheric, but the novel wavers between suspense and romance and never quite convinces as either. Hews too close to stereotype. Not bad, but mildly disappointing.

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September 15, 2011

It's 1938, and already the Sonderprojekte is at work, bringing the great art of Europe to Germany for the Fuhrer. Young Ernst Vogler is sent to Rome to collect a valuable statue, The Discus Thrower. He expects to head straight for the border, but Italian escorts Cosimo and Enzo take him on a wild ride that sets quirky and lively humanity against the grinding, impersonal forces of war, history, and power. A good look at the manuscript suggests that this is nicely paced, brisk with dialog, and lyric at the right moment. Great for book clubs.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2012
Charged by the Third Reich's upper echelon with bringing the classic Roman sculpture The Discus Thrower to Munich as part of Hitler's looting of the world's greatest artifacts, young Ernst Vogler erroneously believes the assignment will not be a difficult one. He has three days to accomplish his mission and two charismatic but strong-willed Italian brothers to help him cross the unfamiliar countryside. Enzo and Cosimo, however, have plans of their own, ones that don't involve adhering to the fhrer's stringent timetable. Enzo is in love, and his fianc'e is on the way to Munich, more or less. And so the caravan detours on a romantic interlude, yet one that will ultimately prove life threatening for all involved. Set against the background of impending war and Nazi reprisals, Romano-Lax's delicately atmospheric journey of discovery is, of course, a metaphor for life, with all its unaccountable and uncontrollable diversions and demands. A gently haunting work of subtle and surprising wisdom.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)