The Dynamite Room
Jason Hewitt
Little, Brown and Associates 2015
304 pages
I am a sucker for thrillers where the main character is a kid. I am also quite partial to those set during WW II. The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt is both. It did not quite meet my expectations but the last fifty or so pages make reading this novel rather worthwhile. Jason Hewitt The Dynamite Room on Kindle
Lydia is an evacuated child who runs away from the people taking care of her and makes her way back to home. Everyone in the village is gone, her parents included. She does not know why. A wounded man shows up and takes up residence in her house, pretty much making her his prisoner.
His name is Heiden. Through various flashbacks we get the story of a young German musician caught up in a war that at first makes sense to him. The reader gets bits and pieces of his personal and love life with a musician named Eva. There are also bits and pieces of different missions he has been on.
Lydia finds a way to coexist with her keeper though it is a bit difficult to buy how quickly her thinking seems to evolve in so short a period of time.
The pacing is a bit slow. The Dynamite Room takes place over five days but it sometimes feels longer. There is something a bit uneven in how Jason Hewitt develops the relationship between young Lydia and Heiden. He also does not quite manage to make the reader clearly see the scenes being described.
The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt is a decent choice as a library book. I’d wait for Hewitt’s next if I was spending money.