In Ways Unimagined by Jerome Ostrov

In Ways Unimagined is the first of two novels comprising Jerome Ostrov's World War II saga, When Country Calls. The story begins in 1933 Hamburg and follows the life of anthropologist, Anton Sternbloom, as he reels from the depths of loss in Germany and reclaims his life in England. There, he overcomes the obstacles of the day and achieves fulfillment in the halls of academia, the rarified precincts of British intelligence, the code breaking world of Bletchley Park and the unforgiving battlefields of 1942 North Africa. Though centered on the prejudices and hatreds of the day, the story is about indomitability in a world spiraling toward war. Touching on both sides of the Atlantic, the novel tracks the darkening events on the European continent as it follows Anton's life and his rediscovery of love, faith and family. Against the backdrop of the 1930's and early 1940's, the reader is introduced to such real and fictional characters as SA Brownshirt lieutenant Wilhelm Velten, elderly war widow and raconteur of Jewish life on the Polish shtetl Selma Zorrofsky, kibbutz rabbi Chaim Goldston, scorned German General Walther Geitel, Columbia University anthropologist Franz Boaz, MI6 deputy director Alex Braxton and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.