Books by Justine Saracen

In Norway under Nazi occupation, Marrit, an Indigenous woman; and Kirsten, a Norwegian resister, join forces to stop the development of an atomic weapon.

It is 1944, and vast armies drive each other back and forth over blood-drenched Europe.  In the midst of it, two radically different women meet, one a Russian speaking American on a failed diplomatic mission and the other a Soviet sniper. The American, fleeing a sordid past worthy of Dostoyevsky, has murder in her heart but has injured no man. The other, a once-saintly believer, has killed a hundred of them for Stalin. Their politics are worlds apart, but a reckless drunken kiss has tied them together, through church and trench, incense and the smoke of battle. If they survive the war, can they survive the peace?

What if Sodom and Gomorrah, those synonyms for debauchery, were in fact perfect societies? What if the avenging angels were genocidal terrorists, and the "one righteous man" who escaped the annihilation was a murderous fanatic and the rapist of his own daughters? Justice is a long time coming, but finally the serene waters of the Red Sea give up the secret of a millennia-old lie. While surrendering to biblical wantonness with a film actress, sculptor Joanna Boleyn, discovers that righteousness can conceal its own depravity, that art tells more truth than scripture, and that challenging authority can be mortally dangerous.