Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review the Madness Locker by Author Eddie Russel. This is a genre that I enjoy reading, albeit with sadness and I was not left disappointed with this literary masterpiece. An absolutely riveting page turner of a book.
Although the subject matter deals with the Holocaust and reign of Adolf Hitler, the characters and storyline of Ruth, Fredrich, Helga and Emma and the trials and tribulations of their life will draw you in with the sadness, complexities, implications and the real life horror. A little back and forth in timelines, it is gripping and powerful and a highly recommend read for those wanting a riveting book.

This was a DNF for me. Had a hard time keeping up with the language/ word choices. There was also too many characters to keep track of for me to find it enjoyable. The plot seemed to be ok.

I never did History in School but have seen documentaries and read in magazines of the years of Hitler and the crimes and what happened there in Auschwitz.
Wow this book was such a powerful storyline of true historical crime that captured my attention. For me it was a real eye opener for the days of the Germans and the Jews with the Hitler Nazi regime.
It’s one of these story lines that tend go to back and forth in years and seasons and characters so once you get into reading and getting to know who is who, it all works out perfectly. I found myself reverting back a page to see what year I had just read and where I was now.
The book starts with Winter 1941 and I got interested in the character of Ruth who is 10 years old and is Jewish. At that age, you are not sure of what is happening around you. Her loving parents made sure she was sheltered from it all. Ruth had a best friend Anna and their lives are told throughout the book as they grow older.
Another character is Friedrich and Emma, more characters that you follow and see where they fit within the story.
Just reading this book I was reduced to sadness of hearing a character and her family being squashed in a boxer train thinking they were heading to some safe place. My heart actually broke reading this and I could feel their pain and frustration and sadness. Then for the train journey to finish and then this girl called Helga who has to endure being separated from family, harsh labour in different ways, being starved and deprived, being raped, seeing people being killed or people just dying from starvation or disease. This made me think back to all the people that did die in Auschwitz.
It certainly is a page turner as you need to know what happens. I was captivated with all the characters in the story and some more so than others but then the story of Helga who really has been through so much, has this vision of revenge and her journey takes her to Australia.
As I finished the book, I felt the tears roll down for the people that died, for the people that got away from true crimes and for the people that lost so much.
I see this is a true debut crime book by Eddie Russell the author. An exceptional read which I am so glad I was able to read. It is such a powerful read and certainly had me gripping my pillow as I read. Eddie says on the front of the very haunting cover that it is inspired by true events.
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book. I think it will be a great best seller for sure. Just want to congratulate you.

This is a dark and brutal novel about individual tragedy in the midst of one of the biggest in history and how, even when you think you’ve escaped horror, it can find you again. There is a huge depth in this book that will have the reader questioning who is right or wrong, what revenge looks like and how people can do such terrible things.

Tragic yet beautifully written, I enjoyed this book's plot overall, especially knowing some things were based on historical events. However I felt the writing of some characters was erratic at best and there was confusion over what was a flash back and what wasn't.

Very great, historical novel set in WW2. I really loved the story line, but did find the timeline/characters to be confusing at times. I could often not tell which was a flashback and what was current without reading the first paragraph or so - headers might help! Overall, recommend to lovers of historical fiction.

I loved the different characters and their stories, although tragic was captivating. This book is beautifully written and captures you from the beginning.

The Madness Locker by Australian author Eddie Russell falls into both the crime and mystery and historical fiction categories and is certainly an unforgettable read. While history was not my strong point in High School I was thoroughly interested in the Hitler, Jewish and Holocaust components of this novel.
The Madness Locker was inspired by the true story of an elderly widow found in a wheelie bin (her body treated no more than common garbage) in the eastern suburbs of Sydney on Christmas Day 1986. The story takes us back to the days of Hitler and the concentration camps where the Jewish were held prisoner. The Jewish prisoners suffered at the hands of the Germans who were devoid of empathy and conscience. The Germans were violent, showing no remorse. While reading this novel I learned that The Madness Locker is described as being where you compartmentalise the daily horrors and humiliation either endured by an individual or witnessing others suffering to help oneself remain sane. Prisoners witness others being killed – the bodies either dumped in mass graves or incinerated. The story presents us with characters the then small child Ruth, Friedrich and Emma, innocent Helga who is not only separated from her family but forced into a life of hard labour, suffering and witnessing the destruction of others She was taken, and her friend Ruth was spared. Helga finds herself seeking revenge and tracking Ruth to Sydney. Ruths Sydney neighbour is actually Friedrich who masquerades as “Sam” portraying a Jewish Holocaust survivor who Police initially suspected was Ruths murderer. We soon learn who is the true murderer.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

The MADNESS LOCKER by Eddie Russell.
I like reading historical crime and thank goodness that I was not around to witness all the horrible crimes to humanity by the Nazi’s and Hitler.
The story is based on true events.
The story has a timeline starting in 1941 telling the story of two young lives one of them a ten year old child named Ruth who loved school and learning only to be told one morning by the principal that she could no longer attend classes at the school but never knew why.
Ruth soon had a tutor who was allowed to teach her from home but she missed walking to school with her best friend Anna.
Ruth was allowed to visit Anna after her homework to play. But Anna and her school friends could not play at Ruth's house because of the troubles.
Then Helga came to stay with her friend Ruth for a week then the trouble begins.
Such a sad story of the ups and downs spent in the Nazi camps Helga suffers the most witnessing horrible things a child should never be subjected too starvation, hard labour rapes .
40 years on in Sydney Australia this is were revenge happens Ruth is murdered and found in a wheelie bin on Christmas morning in 1986 . Who murdered Ruth was it sweet revenge by one of her friends from the Nazi camps?
It is a bit of a surprise who is the culprit.
What a horrible life ending in such tragedy.
My view on this story is heart wrenching and true to life of learning about what happened to the Jews when Hitler ruled .
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this gripping suspenseful story .

This story takes its inspiration from a true crime incident where the body of an elderly woman was found in a garbage dumpster in Australia. The case was never solved, so this novel essentially focuses on speculating about what lay behind her murder.

A large part of the story is set in and around the Second World War era, during Hitler's rise to power and after the German defeat in the war. Events that took place at that time are then re-examined through a contemporary lens.

Unfortunately, although some aspects of the story did have the potential to be interesting, it was written in a very turgid and uninspired fashion. The characters were all unsympathetic - and worse, mostly uninteresting. As a result, I found it hard to get through.

I really expected a lot from this book. But something along the way, it fell flat for me.

The characters were written with depth and emotion but the timeline really bothered me, it got confusing at times that I had to go back to the previous pages to be able to keep up. It's a shame because I've always been interested in reading about the Holocaust and the Nazi's and what happened during the war. This had a lot of potential, I felt Ruth's sadness and longing.

Ugh. I'd hate to give low stars to books but I gotta be honest, this wasn't it for me.

So this is one of those strange books that is "worth it" to read through to the end. By which I mean the initial chapters were kinda weird and at times a tough read. The main reason for this is the POV and perspective is very confusing, there is a mixture of 1st and 3rd person, time jumps and multiple characters.

Not only are their multiple characters but one major element (light spoilers I guess) is that characters lie about who they are and at times their identity is hidden in the narrative.

It's probably hard to capture without reading yourself, but I guess I would summarize the experience of reading this book as feeling more like a series of very challenging and intense scenes, almost like short stories, from Nazi Germany that take a while to become clear in how they are linked (possibly this would be more obvious to astute readers, but I have to stay in my lane I suppose)...

In terms of the mysterious characters they are very complex, not always sympathetic, but always interesting. There aren't really any heroes but there are heroic moments (alongside cowardly, despairing and sometimes just downright nihilistic).

Finally as the book is a work of historic fiction - it doesn't necessarily follow a comfortable fiction arc - which I personally see as a bit of a draw but if you're not looking for that sort of thing don't look here.

it was very hard for me to get into the book. i couldnt get into the story. i wish it was written better.

The premise of the story was interesting but the execution fell short. Lacked character development and the flow was disjointed making it confusing and difficult to keep up.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Madness Locker by Eddie Russell. What a powerful and sad story about a period in history, the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler’s reign, that should never have happened. The story of two families lives intwined by a cruel twist of fate and misguided choices. The lives of two innocent girls, one a Jewish daughter of a neighbour and one of a niece living with her aunt and uncle. This story traces how the lives of each of these girls is changed forever when they are switched and the German girl is sent to the holocaust camps with the parents of the Jewish girl. The story of friendship so strong that the uncle was willing to swap his niece with his neighbours’ daughter and save her life while his niece was sent to the camps.
The story of Helga (the German girl) and how after being sent to the camps, how she survived, her misery of a life and how she vowed to seek revenge for a life taken from her. Ruth the Jewish little girl who lived her life and was not physically harmed by the camps as her life was saved. The story also engages about a boy named Frederick and Anna a Jewish girl. Frederick, this boy who was studying medicine and in a relationship with Anna, his story of how he voluntarily returned to Germany and joined the SS Army as a way of pleasing his parents and hoping to be able to one day escape Germany and return to Anna.
The paths of Helga and Frederick would also cross in the early days of Helga arriving at the camps this was also burnt into her memory for revenge. The end of the holocaust came and with it bought freedom for those still in the Holocaust camps, of which Helga survived. She travelled back to her aunts house to confront them with the accusations that they sent her to the camps and saved Ruth. Frederick who had found his way back to Anna, to only now be a widower was in a new relationship with Ruth. The story tangles its way to how Helga managed to track Ruth down to Australia and find her and Frederick and how this leads to the final part of her revenge. The turn of events and revenge that led to the body of Anna being dumped in the wheelie bin on Christmas Day in 1986.
This story will take you through the lives of these characters there trials and tribulations, the sadness the happiness and the revenge that will be felt by each of them. A truly amazing story and well written of a sad time in our history.