Octogenarian Rose Manon lives a quiet life in her Nevada home, working in the garden and writing a column for the New York Courier. One day she receives word that a trunk of hers was found in the basement of the Paris news office where she worked during World War II. Inside are all of her old columns, notes, letters, and other memorabilia. As she sorts through her past, she narrates her life′s story.

Rose was the child of an unhappy couple. Her mother is angry and uncaring, her father a drunk. As soon as she can, she escapes, bypassing college to work in a newspaper office. She works her way up the ladder into the newsroom. It′s not easy being a female journalist in the 1930s, especially if you don′t want to write society gossip, but Rose, or R.B. Manon, as she goes by in the journalism world, succeeds. In 1933 she becomes a reporter for the Paris Courier and, thanks to her speaking both French and German, is soon sent to Berlin as a political correspondent.

Throughout the 1930s, Rose moves back and forth between Paris and Berlin, watching and writing as the Nazi Party comes to power and the fear of war spreads across Europe. At first she feels secure, confident that her American journalist credentials will protect her. But Rose discovers that despite being nonreligious, being half Jewish is about to become a problem.

[The Last Train to Paris] is a book about a difficult mother-daughter relationship, about a split-second choice that changes your life forever, about being taken seriously in a man′s world, and about anger. Running through it is a sub-plot based on an incident from the author′s own family. In 1937 a distant cousin of hers was abducted by a German citizen in Paris. For two years the headlines carried the sensationalized story of the kidnapping, search, and subsequent trial. Originally the author was going to write a nonfiction book, but decided her fictional characters were more interesting. The result is a well-written and engaging story peppered with real-life people like Colette, Janet Flanner, and Aurora Sand. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and am surprised that it has not received wider attention. ( )

I'm still not sure that I won't bump this up to 4 stars. This is the story of a US journalist in Germany (and France) during WWII. Told as if based on a set of journals found by the journalist as an octogenarian, and moving back and forth between Europe in the pre-WWII years and New York 50+ years later, this is the story of RB (Rose Belle) Manon, an ambitious journalist who is half Jewish and doesn't initially embrace this part of her identity. The notorious kidnapping of her cousin in Berlin sets the stage for the novel but Rosie's antagonistic relationship with her mother, her gradual adoption of her Jewish identity, and the misadventures she has as a journalist in Europe under the growing Third Reich are the focus of this novel. Great clay, but imperfectly sculpted.

Rosie's relationship with her antisemitic and racist mother is understandably tense but the drama lacked poignance. Similarly, Rosie's star-crossed love for Leon, a Jewish engraver forced to work for the Nazis, doesn't quite develop into a narrative in which I could get lost. Still, I found myself appropriately hating Rosie's mum and my heart breaking for the ill-fated romance she had with Leon.

Ultimately, there were times when the narrative tone fell flat for me and I'm not sure if that was Zackheim's intention. Since she was attempting to tell the story as if it were nonfiction and based on found journals, perhaps that flat "this happened and then that happened" cadence was intentional. The middle third of the story, when Rosie/RB is trying to escape Berlin as the Nazi stranglehold quickly and brutally closes, is absolutely gripping. But Zackheim too often tells rather than shows, and that creates the flat tone of an otherwise brilliant novel. Still, I recommend this for readers interested in WWII as it affected ordinary and vulnerable human beings, especially people of mixed ethnic background (how long before we recognize that our concept of "race" has no scientific or genetic basis!?) and partial Jewish heritage. The illustration of the disastrous effects of naive optimism is wonderful and relevant for today's world. So, four stars? Maybe. ( )

I don't know what's wrong with me but I really ought to have loved this book.

Told in first person by Rose 'R.B.' Manon as she looks back at her time in Europe before World War II started, the novel is filled with action yet has an aloof, distanced narrative style that really left me feeling cold and detached. There are so many disparate themes and threads in the plot I couldn't find anything to really hang onto, and I didn't feel any sort of connection with Rose.

Born to a Jewish mother who denied her heritage and a Catholic father, Rose grew up in Nevada and wished to live in New York City where her parents were from.  In her twenties, she moved to Paris to be a journalist, covering Berlin and the rise of Hitler in Germany.  Tragedy strikes first when Rose's actress cousin Stella is murdered and later when Rose's lover is caught up in the violence in Berlin. Her strangely adversarial relationship with her mother comes to a head, in a manner, during the trial of her cousin's murderer. Through her journalistic work, she brushes up against famed European thinkers and writers, like Janet Flaner and Colette, which shape her as well.

Despite the rich potential of this novel, I just couldn't get into it. The various elements felt disjointed and distracting -- was it a novel of World War II? a kind of murder mystery? a coming-of-age and a mother-daughter tale? -- and I wasn't wild about the writing style, which felt so awkward and clunky, like:

Stella, near tears, was sitting in Clara's living room. "Damn this Hitler character," she said. "He's making us all so nervous."

"It's a scary time, Stella," I replied. "I don't think any of us can find a context for what we're feeling." (p56)

or very heavy-handed:

The public was fascinated: that monster, who had no papers, crossed the frontier into France, killed a woman -- and almost got away with it.  It was a metaphor for what the German war machine was threatening across Europe -- except that the Germans were indeed getting away with it. (p105)

I started this book at least six times since I got it in December but it just didn't work for me. However, others have really enjoyed it, like Anna of Diary of an Eccentric (her review) so do check out the other blogs on tour for their thoughts.  Those who like novels about World War II will want to consider this one for sure. ( )