Stealing Trinity [Hardcover]

Ward Larsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

In the last days of WWII, the Third Reich makes a desperate grab to retrieve its most valuable asset, Die Wespe, a spy buried deep in the Manhattan Project. The man chosen for this mission is Alexander Braun---American born, Harvard educated, and a ruthless killer.British Intelligence learns of the Nazi plan. Unable to convince their American counterparts of the magnitude of the threat, they dispatch Major Michael Thatcher to track down Braun.The trail leads to Rhode Island, where Lydia Cole, a young heiress, has unwittingly taken Braun back into her life. Braun is forced to run, and there is one place where he must go--Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb is tested - code named Trinity. In the days that follow, four people - a tenacious British investigator, a determined young woman, a killer, and the spy who could compromise America's greatest scientific endeavor - will have a fateful rendezvous, all vying for control of the secret that will shape the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Larsen (The Perfect Assassin) links the torpedoing of the USS Indianapolis shortly after the ship delivers an atomic bomb to the island of Tinian in the South Pacific to a Nazi plot in his second thriller, set in the waning days of WWII. Maj. Michael Thatcher, a tenacious British officer whose job is to hunt down Nazi spies, is intrigued when the words Manhattan Project come up in one of his interrogations. Meanwhile, in Germany, Col. Hans Gruber knows that a sleeper spy, Die Wespe, who's been working on the atomic bomb project in Los Alamos, must be smuggled out of the U.S. with his stolen plans so that those Nazis who survive the war can rearm and continue their goal of world domination. Charged with this mission is Capt. Alexander Braun, an American fighting in the German army. Braun is clever and ruthless, but once Thatcher catches his scent, he won't rest until Braun is captured or killed. An innovative, original plot marks Larsen as an author to watch. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Leaders in the Third Reich see the end coming and decide to launch a bold plan. One of their most valuable spies in the U.S. is working on a top-secret initiative called the Manhattan Project, prompting the Nazis to send their top agent, ruthless killer Alexander Braun, to reconnoiter with the spy. Born in America, Braun heads back to the States with a personal agenda: visit the woman he was forced to leave behind when he left the country. He finds himself torn between his feelings for her and his mission. Meanwhile, British intelligence learns of Braun and sends one of its best agents after him. All of their lives collide at the dawn of the atomic age. This is well-trod ground—Joseph Kanon’s Los Alamos (1997), for example—and Larsen’s characters and story line provide no real surprises. Still, for readers who can’t get enough of the Manhattan Project in fiction, this is a serviceable thriller. --Jeff Ayers

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Oceanview Publishing (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933515171
• ISBN-13: 978-1933515175
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #772,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ward Larsen's first book, The Perfect Assassin, won numerous awards, including the Florida Book Award Silver Medal, and is currently undergoing screenplay adaptation for a major motion picture. His work has been nominated for both the Edgar and Macavity Awards. A former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, Larsen flew over twenty missions in Operation Desert Storm. He has also served as a Federal Law Enforcement officer, and is a trained aircraft accident investigator.
His fourth book, Fly By Night, was released in November 2011.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting tale of espionage and treason, October 9, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stealing Trinity (Hardcover)

This is a fantastical spy adventure. Alex Braun is a spy who traverses from Berlin to England, to the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean and then the moneyed leisure of Newport, Rhode Island where his Harvard sweetheart, Lydia Cole, is visiting her parents with her buffoon of a husband. He also travels to the vacant desert of New Mexico and J. Robert Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project, and lastly to the middle of the Pacific. Stealing Trinity moves along at a brisk pace, sucking the reader into an exciting WWII tale of espionage, treason, subterfuge and the realization that Germany is no longer fighting a war.

Karl Heinrich, a misguided German Fascist on the Manhattan Project, is ready and willing to impart the secrets of the quiet tribe of university department chairs and Nobel Laureates on Oppenheimer's project in order for the Third Reich to see fruition. Heinrich meets up with Braun (also known as Alex Brown, to his American friends), for their rendezvous, all the while Braun is making plans to sell the secrets to the Russians-and not alerting the fat little Fascist that he's two-timing him.

Simultaneously, Major Michael Thatcher, of the Queen's Military in Great Britain, and Mr. Jones of the FBI, are hot on Braun's trail. But Thatcher has a secret weapon to help him get to Braun quicker-the help of blithe young Lydia Cole, the woman who once loved Alex Brown, but who has now suffered a great loss at his hands.

You won't be able to put Stealing Trinity down. Regardless of how much truth is in this novel, it's a great peek into the history of the A-bomb.

Armchair Interviews says: Amazingly well-written, fast-paced and intriguing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "He holds information that is vital to our future.", October 23, 2008

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stealing Trinity (Hardcover)

Ward Larsen's "Stealing Trinity" opens during the waning days of World War II. Nazi officers are planning their escape routes, hoping to flee the country before they are captured. However, there is one loose end that concerns them--"Die Wespe," "a fat little German scientist who is working on the Manhattan Project with the Americans." The officers want to make contact with this spy, since there is a slim chance that this top secret mission may come to fruition. If it does, "those with the knowledge will control the future of our world." The Germans choose as their emissary Alexander Braun, a handsome Wehrmacht captain who grew up in America, attended Harvard, and speaks impeccable English as well as German. Braun's job will be to find Die Wespe and procure the scientific papers that he has been hiding for the sake of the Fatherland.

Braun makes his way to America, but his goal is not to revive the Nazi cause. He intends to enjoy the good life as the pampered husband of Lydia Cole, the woman he left behind before he returned to Germany. Complicating matters for Alex is Major Michael Thatcher, a one-legged British officer who is obsessed with locating and stopping Braun before he can complete his mission.

Larsen's novel contains all of the usual clichés: a race against time, an intrepid hero and spunky heroine, a murderous villain, and espionage that involves not only the Germans but the Russians and Americans, as well. Although the dialogue and plot are, for the most part, pedestrian, Larsen throws in a few good action sequences and some neat twists and turns. "Stealing Trinity" may not be top drawer World War II spy fiction, but it is entertaining enough to satisfy fans of this popular genre.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New take on Manhattan Project Spies, October 25, 2009

By 

Lee Boyland "Author: The Rings of Allah, Amer... (Melbourne, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stealing Trinity (Hardcover)

Other reviewers have more than covered the exciting story told by Larsen, so I will limit my comments to new areas. I am giving the book five stars for plot originality.

Larsen's concept that the Nazis had a spy in the Manhattan Project's design lab at Los Alamos is, as far as I know, a new and intriguing plot. It is now common knowledge that Beria's NKGB penetrated the Manhattan Project and stole most of its secrets, which explained how the Soviet Union managed to detonate a nuclear device, First Lightning in 1949, years before the OSS and our military estimated they could do so.

In STEALING TRINITY, a German physicists and Nazi spy, The Wasp, has managed to compile most, if not all, of the secret data in one suitcase. Germany surrenders as Capt. Alexander Braun, the Nazi agent sent to contact the Los Alamos spy, is landed off the east coast of Long Island. Can Braun reach The Wasp? If he does, then what? The Third Reich is gone. Larsen uses historical fact as the anchor points in his fascinating story.

A British major who specializes in interrogating captured Nazis interviews a captured corporal, who was responsible for destroying top secret files. Before doing so, he took a peek and remembered two words, Manhattan Project. When Major Thatcher makes inquires about the name, red flags are raised and he is told to drop the issue. Exactly the wrong thing to tell a dedicated Nazi hunter, and the hunt begins.

Major Thatcher meets the FBI who is more interested in keeping him from finding out what the Manhattan Project is than finding the spy. For those who have had experience with code word projects and "need to know," the story will have echoes of truth. For others will just be an amusing comedy.

Ward does an excellent job of describing the first nuclear detonation of Gadget, and the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, without getting in over his or the reader's head in technical details. The USS Indianapolis did deliver the nuclear components and it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.

STEALING TRINITY is a good read anchored in historical facts. Fans of W.E.B. Griffin's Men At War series will like this book.