Customer Reviews

A Gathering of Spies

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

 

 

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.

V.1353 is Katarina Heinrich, a German spy trained to be the best at infiltrating American society. Her job is to gather information to enable the Fatherland to win the upcoming war. In December 1933, Katarina kills Catherine Danielson and assumes the dead woman's identity. She moves to Princeton where she becomes a housekeeper for Richard Carter. Soon, Richard and "Catherine" marry. Katarina the spy becomes dormant. In 1942, her spouse obtains a top-secret job working on a weapon of mass destruction at Los Alamos.

Katarina kills someone else to use her identity to bring information on the project to Germany. Andrew Taylor recruits Harris Winterbotham to serve as a double agent, spying for the Germans. Harris knows the Germans have his wife incarcerated at the Dachau concentration camp and plans a triple cross to free his spouse. His actions lead him to a confrontation with the efficient and effective Katarina.

A GATHERING OF SPIES, John Altman's debut novel, is one of the year's best espionage thrillers. The action-packed tale dramatizes life in Germany, Britain, and the United States at the early part of World War II. The realistic characters include heroes and villains ordering innocent people to perform abominable tasks or else. Mr. Altman opens with a triumph that hopefully will be accompanied by more WW II spy stories.

Harriet Klausner