In many ways, the Quaker Jan de Hartog reminds one of Graham Greene, his Roman Catholic counterpart. Both are crafty and fascinating storytellers, both are more obsessed with the forces of evil than with the power of salvation; both remain loyal to their faith yet highly critical of their religious organizations, especially of the bureaucracy, the self-righteousness and the little power games church people also play. [The Lamb's War], a kind of monographic sequel to de Hartog's broader historical work, The Peaceable Kingdom, tells the story of Laura Martens, a Dutch girl, from her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and her "new life" as a G.I. bride in a Quaker family, to her successful career as an international advocate for the starving and threatened children of the Third World.

Mainly through his realistic style, already evident in his strong wartime novel, Holland's Glory, Jan de Hartog...