Amazon.com Review
Glenn Meade's latest historical thriller begins in 1939, at the archaeological site of Sakkara near Cairo. Best friends Jack Halder (a wealthy German American playboy), and Harry Weaver (who grew up in the servants quarters of Jack's house), get together for high jinks, digging, and discovery. Both men fall in love with the same woman--Rachel Stern, a beautiful archaeologist. They shovel, talk, argue about who loves whom more, while Hitler invades Poland.
Four years later, World War II is at its height. Jack has become a German spy and Rachel is in a concentration camp. Both are pulled from their respective situations, and are sent by the Nazis to Cairo. Their mission is to help set the stage for a commando raid that will kill Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. And guess who the Allies choose to destroy these dastardly plans? Army Intelligence's own Lieutenant Colonel Harry Weaver, of course.
As in the author's previous World War II blockbusters, Brandenburg and Snow Wolf, former journalist Meade knows how to blend his copious historical research into an intriguing fictional frame. Even though we know that Churchill and FDR survived Cairo, Meade makes it easy for us to suspend our doubts and go along for the enjoyable (if slightly derivative) ride. --Dick Adler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
"Fate's a funny thing, Colonel," muses newshound Frank Carney to an aging war heroAa motto that could serve as an epigraph to this leisurely, Casablancan thriller about a Nazi plot to assassinate FDR and Winston Churchill in Cairo. In the summer of 1939, Jack Halder (son of "a beautiful New York socialite mother and a wealthy Prussian father with a renowned passion for ancient Egypt") and his best friend, Harry Weaver (who grew up as the child of caretakers on Mrs. Halder's estate), meet at Sakkara, an exciting archeological dig just south of Cairo. Among Sakkara's charms is the half-Jewish German archeologist Rachel Stern. The love triangle's potential divisiveness is sidetracked by the announcement that Germany has invaded Poland. The threesome reunites in the fall of 1943, when a Nazi general sends Halder, who, though American-born, is a German citizen and secret agent, two SS officers and Rachel (as insurance) to pave the way for a commando raid that will kill the Allied leaders. Headstrong, na?ve American intelligence officer Lt.-Col. Harry Weaver is dispatched to thwart their plans. Despite an overwhelmingly detailed narrative rife with spies, kidnappings, black marketers and aerial dogfights, there's little suspense in either the love story or the assassination attempt. Weaver and Halder always choose friendship over duty, and while their shared passion for Rachel may blind them, it never drives a wedge between them. The neatly turned final twistAspecialty of the bestselling Meade (Brandenburg)Aresolves the romantic competition over Rachel for good, though the flash-forward of the last pages reopens the question of the epic friendship between Jack and Harry. The conclusion of the political risk the thriller imagines is, of course, foregone with Roosevelt's death in 1945. For all this, the Nazi-heavy plot and its Hollywood-exotic Egyptian backdrop capture the softest part of the imagination, rendering the story absorbing if not challenging.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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