Critics' Opinion:
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Published in USA
Aug 2009
384 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
This powerfully suspenseful new novel from Dan Fesperman takes us deep into the early 1940s in Switzerland and Germany as it traces the long reach of the wartime intrigues of the White Rose student movement, which dared to speak out against Hitler.
When Nat Turnbull, a history professor who specializes in the German resistance, gets the news that his estranged mentor, Gordon Wolfe, has been arrested for possession of stolen World War II archives, he's hardly surprised that, even at the age of eighty-four, Gordon has gotten himself in trouble. But what's in the archives is staggering: a spymaster's trove missing since the end of the war, one that Gordon has always claimed is full of 'secrets you can't find anywhere else ... live ammunition.'
Yet key documents are still missing, and Nat believes Gordon has hidden them. The FBI agrees, and when Gordon is found dead in jail, the Bureau dispatches Nat to track down the material, which has also piqued the interest of several dangerous competitors. As he follows a trail of cryptic clues left behind by Gordon, assisted by an attractive academic with questionable motives, Nat's quest takes him to Bern and Berlin, where his path soon crosses that of Kurt Bauer, an aging German arms merchant still hoarding his own wartime secrets. As their stories—and Gordon's—intersect across half a century, long-buried exploits of deceit, devotion, and doomed resistance begin working their way to the surface. And as the stakes rise, so do the risks ...
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"... readers who like a bit of history with their thrills will be thoroughly satisfied." - Publishers Weekly
"His characters are believable, and the strong and credible plot will especially appeal to fans of World War II espionage fiction." - Library Journal
"Well-crafted entertainment that also delivers complex truths about warfare and survival." - Kirkus Reviews
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Dan Fesperman grew up in North Carolina and has reported for the Fayetteville, Durham Morning Herald, Charlotte News, Miami Herald and The Baltimore Sun, and worked in its Berlin bureau during the years of civil war in the former Yugoslavia, as well as in Afghanistan during the recent conflict. His travels as a writer have taken him to 30 nations and three war zones.
Fesperman's first novel, Lie in the Dark, won the Crime Writers Association of Britain's John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel, and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and children.
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