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William Dietrich's bizarrely inventive thriller BLOOD OF THE REICH begins in a very low-key manner. We meet a young woman named Rominy Pickett who seems to be just your average Seattle single, shopping for groceries at her local supermarket. Then she notices a good-looking guy following her from aisle to aisle. At first she is flattered, but then she feels that he is stalking her and runs out of the store. He chases her and jumps on top of her just as her car blows up, saving her from certain death. Jake Barrow, the guy who tackled Rominy, tells her he is a reporter investigating a story in which she figures prominently. He informs her that she is not who she thinks she is and goes on to take her on a whirlwind journey that includes getting shot at by Neo-Nazis, claiming a huge inheritance, and discovering the remains of people killed decades before. And that is just in the area around Seattle. The next chapter takes place in 1938, and the structure of the book goes back and forth between events in Nazi Germany before WWII, 1938 Tibet, and the present day, in Seattle and elsewhere. What both the past and the present have in common is that all of the events presented are completely preposterous. In the 1938 chapters, we follow Nazis, led by a scientist named Raeder, who are looking for Shambhala, which might be Shangri La. Himmler believes that there is a genetic connection between the Tibetans and the Aryan race, and that there is a power in the Tibetan mountains that the Nazis need to find. So they trek to Tibet. Meanwhile, an American scientist named Benjamin Hood is also sent to Tibet to try to stop the Nazis from getting whatever it is they are looking for. An aviatrix named Beth Calloway flies him across China, because Madame Chiang Kai-Shek orders her to, and when they land in Tibet she and Hood immediately make love on the ground beside the airplane. Meanwhile, back in the present, Rominy is sleeping with Jake, but secretly suspects he is not what he says he is, especially when his lectures to her on the past seem always to include ideas about why Hitler was not as bad as history has painted him. Jake reveals that Rominy has a genetic connection to the people who went to Tibet in 1938 and sooner than you can ask, "Why isn't she more suspicious?" she is on a plane to Lhasa. There is much more to this story, including Buddhist nuns, sexual abuse, cyclotrons and magic wands. There is also a lot of blood, as the title indicates, and it is used for some unusual purposes. No, it does not make a lot of sense, but eventually the past and the present are brought together and for some reason I needed to find out what else would happen. Perhaps other readers will feel this same compulsion. Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, June 2011
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