The Last Innocent Hour: A Novel - Hardcover

Abbott, Margot

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312063776 ISBN 13: 9780312063771

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1991

Synopsis

Returning to Berlin in 1946 to help prosecute war criminals, Sally Mayr recalls her idyllic childhood and her prewar marriage to S.S. officer Christian Mayr, wondering if her Nazi husband is still alive

About this title

Review:

This is a good yarn set against a historical background that continues to galvanize the imagination. Washington Post

Margot Abbott’s skillfully written first novel manages to capture the essence of pre- and postwar Berlin while detailing a love affair that turns into a nightmare. Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

With the élan of a born story-teller the author paints vivid pictures of a decadent Berlin before the war and a desolate Berlin afterward. Sally Jackson is an admirable, multilayered heroine, but Christian Mayr is even more fascinating. Ms. Abbott explores the very nature of evil and the implications of loving a perpetrator of evil. The Last Innocent Hour humanizes stereotypes while telling a magnificent love story. Atlanta Journal Constitution & Chicago Tribune

Abbott does a superb job recreating the climate of pre-war Germany...all of Abbott’s diverse cast of characters are believable and, more important, engaging. San Jose Mercury

...absorbing first novel, which skillfully evokes life in the ’30s and ’40s is the story of a woman who loses her ideals and her love to the ravages of World War II in Nazi Germany...fascinating psychological drama.  Richmond, VA Times-Dispatch

With “Innocent Hour’s” characters we are reminded of the Chinese curse “May you live interesting times”...the book is brilliant in its evocation of time, place and character.  Star-News Pasadena, CA

Margot Abbott has spun a tingling story replete with the elements of a thriller: a heroine with a mysterious past, an impassioned but doomed love, and an adversary who embodies power and evil. Oakland Tribune

To be young in Hitler’s Third Reich was a ghastly accident of birth. And to be in love was to risk losing all that you most valued to the Nazi nightmare. So Margot Abbott perceives in The Last Innocent Hour, a huge, emotive and vividly researched novel of wartime Germany...the novel deepens into a disturbing psychological drama about soul-destroying shame – the legacy of Sally’s all-too-human fascination for decadence and for a golden boy wearing a Haupstumfurhrer’s uniform. This sweeping tale of innocence, evil and hard-won redemption contrives to charm, repel and rivet you by turns. It leaves you wondering if, given the misfortune to have lived through those horrific times, you would yourself have found the strength to resist evil with courage, or give way to fear. She Magazine, U.K

 

About the Author:

Margot Abbott's "The Last Innocent Hour" was first published as a hardback in 1991 and translated into 7 languages. Other work includes short pieces in professional publications and seven years as a newspaper columnist. Her historical novel "Merely Players" will be published by Sand Hill Review Press next year. Margot lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is working on her next novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0312063776
• ISBN 13: 9780312063771
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1