I really enjoyed this book, much more than I thought I would as short stories are not always to my reading taste. It consists of three stories, well two novellas and one short story. They were so enjoyable, so easy to read yet interesting and left me yearning to read more from Hellmann.
The first story the Incidental Spy is about a young jewish girl who leaves Nazi Germany once Hitler's power begins to take a dangerous turn. She gets a job working in a university as a secretary, falls in love and marries and inadvertently ends up working as a spy. The second story POW highlights how some German prisoners from a camp in the locality were working on a farm nearby. One young girl began a clandestine relationship with one of the German soldiers which was doomed to fail. Their encounters were discovered and she was banished in disgrace to Chicago. He eventually showed his true colours in a turn I did not anticipate. In The Day that Miriam Hirsh Disappeared we see young men coming of ages in a jewish neighbourhood. Jake and Barney see Miriam from a far and Jake in particular is broken hearted when he sees the local thug and gang leader Skull in her company. An argument is overheard one night and Miriam is never seen again. They boys do not understand the significance of all that transpired, but we, the readers quickly do. Although these stories are short, they are thought provoking and hard hitting. They will not be easily forgotten.

Really, amazingly well done. I read it and one of my sons (15.5 yrs old) read it on my kindle. It kept both of us so into the story that we lost track of what was going on around us. We loved it~

Hellman presents three tales of World War II with an interconnected theme about espionage and the homefront. Two are novellas and one is a short piece. The first novella invokes the mysteries of the Manhattan Project and efforts made through fear and seduction to pierce the web of secrecy surrounding it. The second novella explores the story of German POWs housed in the USA and apparently there were some half a million, captured in the North African desert. During work on a farm, a farm girl is seduced. What follows involves the FBI. Both of these stories are well-told and give a real sense of time and place and the conflicts and difficulties. The POW story is told through alternating points of view. The last story is just a short piece and is far more loosely connected to the other tales. This one gives a taste of a Chicago neighborhood.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.