Book Review: The Moon is Down

This book is part of the series of short John Steinbeck Books I am been reading.  It was originally published in 1942 by Viking Press.  I have read it before, as all of these books, but enjoyed it all the same.  An invading army easily takes over a city.  It is assumed to be the Nazis and most likely Norway.  The city has a coal mine and a port.  The coal is important to the invading army, and so this city is of importance.  The invasion was planned well, and with the help of an inside man, they take over the city with no casualties on the part of the invading army.  However, when the local militia of twelve men return from target practice, six of them are killed by machine gun fire, another three are wounded.
This story pits that of the invaders and the conquered, and the roles they play in resisting each other.  Of course the invaders would like to be accepted, to be loved; but such cannot be the case.  And so resentment, hatred and rebellion fester with the people.  Some of the locals escape to England, but still the situation is precarious.  When one of the minors gets upset, for being forced to work when he is a “freeman,” he kills a German officer.  He is brought to a mock trial, with the mayor supposedly presiding.  The mayor refuses to condemn him to death, saying he will only do this when the 20 men who killed the local militia are also brought to justice.  However, he has to be executed, so this is done without the mayor’s good graces.
The resentment continues to boil, and finally the mayor is able to get a message out, to inform the English of their resistance.  They are rewarded with dynamite, dropped down in parachutes, which they can easily use to blow up the tracks, and slow down the extraction of coal. 
So in the end, the flies had captured the flypaper.  The invaders could threaten, could execute, take away rights, but in the end, freedom wins out.  You can’t take away the will of the people to protect their freedoms.  I highly recommend this book.  It has been published in many languages, used during WWII to stimulate resistance, and depicts accurately the will of people to resist the conqueror.