Let’s say you work for the Office of Naval Intelligence in 1936. If you can’t convince anyone in the political hierarchy that Hitler really is rearming, what do you do? You find a maverick financier to fund an assassination, not of Hitler, but of the man overseeing the military buildup.
Now, you need the shooter, so instead of a sniper, you find a mob hit man who is fluent in German, catch him in the act, and make him an offer he can’t refuse: kill this guy or get put on the fast track for the chair at Sing Sing. Tough choice.
So, Paul Schumann gets put on a boat with the Olympic Team to make his way to Berlin. He has a contact, a place to stay, meets a local ‘businessman’ who deals anyway he can, cases the hit, sets up his escape (with his landlady who he, uhmm, lands), learns that the mark is also testing the mindset of some young Aryans by having them commit murder under different situations . . . all of this while he is being doggedly tracked by a local cop because Paul’s contact killed a Stormtrooper who was following Paul. And that’s just the first 48 hours.
Is my cynicism showing? I struggled with this book. Just never could get going. The setup dragged for me. 300 pages describing about 48-72 hours. Having said that, the last 100ish pages were more of what I was expecting and that section just flew. But it wasn’t enough to redeem the first 300 pages. For me, the best parts of the book were the descriptions of everyday life in Berlin as they move towards war. I know Deaver is an author who is constantly on the best seller list, but I'm not sure I'll be back anytime soon.
East Coast Don
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