The Blitz Business
A fifteen-year-old lad with mild retardation is cast adrift in London during World War II. Some people want to lock him up, some want to love and protect him, and some want to kill him.
Jamie is 15 and has mild retardation. He lives with his grandmother and cousin Roy in London’s East End as a virtual shut-in. It is December 29, 1940, and the Blitz is at its worst. Jamie wanders away from home and soon finds himself in the midst of circumstances beyond his comprehension. He survives many harrowing predicaments, including one that tests his courage when someone he loves is in mortal danger.
In spite of such adversity, Jamie endears himself to just about everyone he meets. He blossoms in the midst of a loving family, learns to read, discovers a talent for gardening, and develops into a philosophical, talented and loveable young man.
“The Blitz Business is an extremely ambitious novel, about big issues and big events, with a large and compelling cast of characters and a complexity that evolves to a wonderfully satisfying resolution. This is an outstanding debut that gives us a whole new angle on the last great war while offering richly imagined characters who are real from the first page to the last.”
—Fred Leebron, author of Christiania and In the Middle of All This
“Deeply moving and endlessly surprising, Blitz Business brings heart and unexpected light to the darkest corners of war-torn London. In Spruzen's capable hands, a vulnerable young man's search for a forever home becomes an irresistible journey filled with indelible characters and real danger. A novel of striking wisdom limned with a gritty historical edge.”
—Laura Benedict, author of the Bliss House trilogy