Codeword Cromwell [Import] [Paperback]

Ted Allbeury (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Mayflower (1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0583130062
• ISBN-13: 978-0583130066
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,563,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Pleasing wartime espionage yarn, August 13, 2002

By 

F. J. Harvey "Cricket ,country music and a go... (Birmingham England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Codeword Cromwell (Hardcover)

This is a somewhat uncharacteristic novel from Allbeury who is mainly associated with the same fictional territory as Le Carre and Ambler--the realistic spy yarn. This is a book in the Jack Higgins vein and its debts to The Eagle Has Landed are eveywhere apparent.
Its setting is World War 2-and the protagonist is Max Von Bayer a German officer in the SS .He knows England well having studied at Cambridge and fallen in love with the English beauty Sadie Aaron and been rejected ,Bitter he returns to Germany and becomes involved in the plan to invade England. Angered by the lukewarm stance of the Abwehr and Wehrmacht he resolves to assemble his own guerilla group to perform acts of sabotage on English soil to provoke the official German forces to adopt a less puisillanimous stance
Allbeury includes a scene between Hitler
and the US ambassador to Portugal where the dictator is told of a promise by FDR to declare war if Germany invades.Pure nonsense.
he would never have got it through Congress and he was no friend to Britain anyway.
The group is assembled in pure The Magnificent Seven style.Arms experts ,communications person ,mechanic ,demolitions and set out on their mission .Allbeury is good at the internal tensions betwen the mixed sex group and shows the confusion of the English well and unsentimentally
Best taken as a "ripping yarn" with lots of action ,effective if not massively detailed characterization and let down only by some windy philosophising that slows proceedings down a tad.
For Jack Higgins and Alistair Maclean fans mainly