In published comments about '' The Navigator '' , Pocalyko described his novel as " an up-to-the-minute financial thriller " that is also " a big-idea book . " The overarching literary leitmotif is the interplay of big government and big business in the digital economy . The book 's major themes are PTSD and its next-generation effects , financial regulation , clandestine intelligence operations , fathers and sons , competition between brothers , interracial romance , banks too big to fail , insider technology deals , political ambition , German guilt , Israeli justice , Arab honor , and " how the past is never really the past , even if it 's not your own past . " The Holocaust is an important underpinning of the novel . Pocalyko 's father was a liberator at Bergen-Belsen , an experience that he fictionalizes in the novel 's dark , intense prologue . The author is fluent in German , a language that figures very significantly in '' The Navigator ''
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Navigator (Pocalyko novel)