Customer Reviews

A Gathering of Spies

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This is a remarkable first novel that carries you from Hitler's Germany to the nuclear laboratory at Las Alamos to the Double Cross system by which Britain had turned German spies and was using them to feed false information to the Nazis to the personal problems of a British professor who had been for compromising with Hitler before the war and whose wife was being held in a German concentration camp.

Part of the power of this novel comes from the startling contrast between the totally dedicated German spy who has no human ties, no fondness for the Americans she is surrounded by, no sentiment toward the physicist husband she has taken and is driven by her duty and her assignment and the British professor who wants his country to win but much more deeply wants his wife to be safe. The one is hard, alienated, and driven, the other is soft, complex and uncertain. Yet, in the end the British Professor's determination to save his wife is an even more effective force than the German spy's desire to fulfil her mission.

The intricacies of both the American scene from Princeton to Los Alamos and the building of the bomb and the deprivation and determination of wartime Britain using German spies to send false messages back to Germany are both compelling.

Altman fits these pieces of the puzzle into a believable and fascinating story which will keep you going. If you like spies, complexity, and fast paced adventure you will read this novel and look forward to Altman's next book as I do.

reminded me of early Ken Follet with Day of the Jackal overtones. I read this one straight through. Not quite as good as Black Cross but an excellent novel. Hard to believe this is Altmans first novel. An exceptional talent.

This was one of several books I got at Christmas, and it did not disappoint. As a fan of the genre, I think Altman is a welcome new addition. This spy book is definitely NOT the same old, same old. I couldn't put it down once I started it. Bravo!

I bought this book on a friend's recommendation and wasn't disappointed. It's full of intrigue, an old fashioned page turner! The antogonist, Katrina, is like a latter day Charlie's Angel, butworking for the bad guys. It would make a great movie.

From the moment Katarina Heinrich, a German spy, kills Catherine Danielson and assumes her identity, I was caught in a web of thrills that kept me turning pages as Katarina, now Catherine, marries a Princeton professor, and moves to Los Alamos where she discovers AlbertEinstein's 'secret'letter toFranklin DelanoRoosevelt detailing a secret,the development of the A Bomb. Altman takes you through a plot of spy and counterspy which keeps you glued to the page. Will Katarina deliver her secret to the Germans? A subplot involving an English spy whose wife in interred in Dachau provides excitement while the reader learns if a man will do "anything" to get his wife out of a concentration camp. Hitler and his cohorts that run the Nazi machine come to life as real, manipulative and vulnerable. Reading A Gathering of Spies until six thirty in the morning was worth the loss of sleep.

If you're looking for an entertaining, fast paced thriller, this book is it. I thoroughlly enjoyed it, and am now sharing it with my family.

Impressive hardly touches this first novel by author John Altman. The plot, characters, intrigue, and nonstop action, all set in World War II America and Europe combine to make this the best new novel I've read this summer. Don't miss it!

While at the Jersey Shore, I couldn't put this book down. I reccomend it highly to anyone who enjoys this genre. It's a promissing beginning for a new writer and I hope there's another to read by next summer!

I found it hard to believe this was Altman's first novel. It is a classic spy yarn with thrills and twists and violence at every turn. I give it 5 stars!!!

I'm scared to death of flying... bought this in the airport at JFK and made it back home through an hour of turbulence without once looking up. Katrina makes La Femme Nikita look like the Avon lady, and the final showdown ROCKED. Altman might have restored my faith in spy novels.