Customer Reviews

Spandau Phoenix

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Greg Iles really packed the action into "Spandau Phoenix." I would have rated the book higher, but it is way too long and goes off on many unnecessary tangents. A tighter narrative would have made a more suspenseful, and enjoyable read. However, if you have the patience to hang-in through almost 700 pages, you may find this suspense thriller very worth while.

Berlin's Spandau Prison, where WWII Nazi war criminals were kept, was the last residence of Rudolph Hess, Prisoner #7, and Hitler's one time second in command. Hess left Nazi Germany in 1941 and flew a plane to Great Britain. His reasons, or mission, for going to the UK were never revealed. Hitler publicly called Hess insane for making the flight and parachuting into enemy territory. When Hess supposedly committed suicide in his prison cell in 1987, he was Spandau's last occupant. The prison was then scheduled to be destroyed. As crowds gathered to watch the demolition of this famous building, Berlin police were assigned to maintain crown control. KGB agents diligently photographed the crowd for later identification by the East German Stasi. Among the observers was an Israeli agent. A German police captain, in charge of the contingent guarding the rubble, unexpectedly finds mysterious papers hidden in what was Hess' cell. The papers were all written in Latin, a language he does not understand, except for the first paragraph, which is in German. The paragraph interested the police officer enough for him to bring the papers home to his wife to translate.

Thus begins a desperate and brutal quest by the Soviets, British, Americans, and an Israeli agent for the Spandau Diaries - a search which leaves many dead bodies in its wake. Was Rudolph Hess really Prisoner #7, or did he have a double? Did Hess have a political agenda when he parachuted into Great Britain or was he really insane? Were members of the British nobility involved in a subversive plot with Hess and Hitler?

This novel involves Germans, Russians, Israelis, British, Americans, South Africans, and Libyans. Iles' extraordinary tale takes the reader on a terrifying adventure into the past, which leads to the chilling realities of the present, that could very well result in worldwide nuclear war. His action scenes are so well written that they are almost visual, and certainly bring this drama to life. The main characters are complex and well defined, individually and in their relationships to each other. The ending will have you on the edge of your seat.

In spite of the book's unnecessary length, and a confusing narrative at the beginning, I do recommend "Spandau Phoenix" to fans of mystery-thrillers and espionage novels. Bottom line - great plot and characters overcome any flaws.
JANA

Rudolph who? Who knows. The story is sooooooo fantastic that you will have a hard time distinguishing reality and fantasy in this amazing work of fiction. This is easily one of my favorite books of all time. Iles paints brilliant characters who move quickly in an intricately woven plot. How does the "evil spirit of Facism" continue 40 years after the war is over? This book is convincing in it's presentation of this idea (and many other subtle and not so subtle political ideologies) that will have you thinking and rethinking your views of the current geopolitical scheme of the world. There is nothing negative to say about this book except that it ends... Absolutely brilliant. Kevin Hogan, ...

This is simply an outstanding book. Right from the get go Iles grabs you and doesn't let loose. The book flies by as you gobble up the words, which lead from scene to scene. Parallel timeframes are traced up to the same moment but through a different set of eyes. Iles juggles many balls in the air at the same time but manages to keep them separated and suspended together. A very carefully woven fabric of intrigue entices the reader to keep going. The violence in the book is appropriate to the subject matter and is never gratuitous. There are some nasty people in the world and Iles is writing about the nastiest. There are no super heroes. Many times it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad. There are no writer's crutches, gimmicks, or supernatural ploys to spoil the suspense. You don't know what will happen next and that makes for an excellent book. The sheer volume of events and characters make this a book inappropriate for readers with a short attention span. This book is not the mindless, pulp fiction pap that fills so many best seller lists today. This book has some meat to it, which is so much more satisfying than most of the formula novels churned out for mass consumption. When I finished the book I felt I had read my money's worth. Mr. Iles has another satisfied customer.

Rudolf Hess...did he REALLY commit suicide as recorded by history in the Spandau prison in the late 80's? He reportedly hung himself. The man reportedly couldn't even raise his arms above his shoulders due to severe joint problems...and yet this old man finally did himself in...or DID he? The premise here is just plain GREAT. Mr. Iles has created an impossible-to-put-down thriller based upon REAL facts and actual instances and ties them together seamlessly. I have ALWAYS enjoyed the way Jack Higgins could take a real event from WWII and tie it in with a fictional event and pull it off...well the heir to the throne that Higgins dominated in the 70's has arrived, and Greg Iles IS his name. This is a large book, and it's totally filled with intrigue and suspense. Did Rudolf Hess actually live past the War and is he living in South America? What do the Spandau papers contain? What of the failed mission that the 'real' Hess supposedly undertook at the beginning of the war...was it REALLY him? Why was it he never recognized his own children after the war? Rudolf Hess was a WWI war hero and received a battle wound...however the man reportedly to BE Hess in Spandau Prison did not have that scar... Too good to be true? Well many of these are true facts and that is where Iles takes you into speculative fiction, and he does it very well. He almost gets you to believe that maybe, just maybe his version of what happened IS the real thing. From a manhunt that spans Europe to Africa, 'Spandau Phoenix' really IS an incredible adventure thriller of the highest order. Better than anything Jack Higgins ever produced (pretty high praise, dontcha think?). Give it a shot, sit back and enjoy. Iles manages to give us an adrenaline rush that is totally satisfying and makes you sad as the book comes to a close. Simply put: 'Spandau Phoenix' is absolutely wonderful.

It's 1987. Gorbachev is in power. The cold war is rapidly winding to a close. So what does it matter that an old man, the last of the Nazi war criminals, is found dead in Spandau prison?

Well, it turns out that no fewer than eight governmental organizations (American, British, East and West German, South African, Israeli, Libyan and Russian) have a vested interest the death of the prisoner formerly known as Rudolf Hess - and it all revolves around a nine-page document that is found by an honest West German police officer.

Most of the intricate plot is set up in the first third of the book, and the rest just traces the story of the Spandau papers to its highly complex and inexorable conclusion. If I had a complaint, it'd be that some characterization is sacrificed in order to keep the plot advancing - but I wouldn't have made the book any longer than its 700 paperback pages, either. To Iles' credit, there's never any trouble keeping his large cast of characters straight.

Great beach read!

I must say this is the book that made me fall in love with the WWII thriller, though its no actually a WWII conspiracy thriller, its close though. Its been tough though finding a book in the same sub-genre that meets the enjoyment I got from this book. This book and a segment of Unsolved Mysteries has convinced me that there was something fishy going on with the whole Hess mess. But anyway, this book has made onto the keep shelf of my book case, because I have already re-read it and plan on doing so many times in the future. Though I need to get a new copy, lent it out too much, and its now falling apart. Hope you take my advice and pick one up for youself.

This is a complex tale of Rudolph Hess' flight from Nazi Germany to Britain in May 1941 and the deep secrecy that surrounds that trip. The public story has always been that Hess was insane and the allies kept him locked up in Spandau Prison in Berlin until he died in 1987. However, Iles notes that the entire Hess mission has been wrapped in the deepest secrecy by the British and that keeping open an entire prison for one man suggests something was going on of present value and not merely historic in nature.

Iles proposes a few simple daring concepts: First, there was a faction of the British upper class including the Duke of Windsor who saw Hitler as less dangerous than Stalin and wanted a peace settlement (this is certainly true and both Churchill and Roosevelt knew how totally unreliable the Duke of Windsor was). He simply suggests that the scale of potential betrayal was so great that it was worth a great deal to the British to keep the involvement of Britons in the Hess mission concealed.

Next, Iles suggests that the real Hess had a double and it is the double who ended up spending his life in Spandau while Hess survived first in Latin America and then in South Africa.

Finally, Iles intimates that the real Hess used Nazi wealth and contacts to create a substantial fortune dedicated to revenge against Israel and a reassertion of Aryan supremacy using nuclear weapons.

The plot is complex and incredibly very fast paced. The handful of people trying to stop the phoenix-like rise of a new threat is believable and their predicaments remain human and urgent.

All in all this is an interesting tale that raises a lot of questions about one of the few world war two secrets which is still buried behind officially closed files.

This book is really fantastic. It keeps you guessing right to the end when you face the truth (in this case it is only a possible solution of a mistery as the book is a WWII fiction). I've been always fascinated by the Hess-mistery and I was absoulutely content with this story.

The book is sometimes extremely violent, but one must remember that Nazis weren't a bunch of school kids. The violence is masterfully portrayed. Iles never uses violence "just for fun", it always has an important role in the storyline.

The characters are one by one made of "flesh and bone". They all are easy to imagine. As the story goes along you'll get more and more tied to them. There are no totally positive neither negative characters. That's why they are so believable. Besides the story itself this is the most important strength of the book.

I won't tell you anything about the story itself as it was written many times before me, I only want to tell you: if you want a good read and a sleepless night then you'll have to read this.

I read this after enjoying Iles' "Footprints of God" quite a bit. This is his first work and thank goodness he has since learned to be more concise. The book is lengthy, and repeats itself quite a bit (due, I assume to the length and complexity of the plot and characters). Several characters could've been cut out entirely - they were in long enough to kill and be killed, but didn't add anything to the story. Intriguing characters, too - he could've saved them for their own stories.

After wanting to get to the end for the last 200 pages, I found the ending itself rushed. All loose ends were wrapped up very conveniently and in ways that didn't pay off for the investment of time required to get that far.

There were some aggravating teases, too. When the Israeli finally gets to confront the Nazi for the question of "why?" (regarding the anti-semitism), I was really hoping that Iles would've ventured a reply - anything to try and give the Nazi character some depth or plausibility other than just pure hate for the sake of hate. Nope - he put the question out there and didn't try to answer it. That's what I was hoping for - replace some of the graphic violence with real explorations of the underlying themes and how this fanaticism really survives - not just giving example after example of how it's manifested.

All that being said, the last page of the epilogue is brilliant, and in it, I found a simple yet profound statement that struck a chord.

I cant believe anyone who read this would not consider this book brilliant. Great characters, pace and story. My first Iles book and Im very happy I bought it. I read alot and I consider this among the best 15 books Ive read all year (out of about 60)