Fiction, Fiction Subjects

Spandau Phoenix

Name: Spandau Phoenix
Author: Greg Iles
ISBN: 9780451179807

by Greg Iles

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Overview

The Spandau Diary—what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and sexually tormented to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in the new conflict now about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?

In an adventure- and suspense-filled novel, Iles answers the greatest remaining mystery of World War II in a lightning-fast tale that ranks with the works of Follett and Ludlum. Amongst the rubble of Spandau Prison, the diary of enigmatic Nazi Rudolph Hess is found, and the secrets it reveals plunge the world into chaos.

Synopsis

The Spandau Diary — what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in this new conflict about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?

Publishers Weekly

Stock characters and melodramatic plotting mar this first novel, which posits a Rudolf Hess impostor imprisoned in Spandau while the real Nazi remains free, working from a secret South African stronghold to keep Hitler's legacy alive. In 1987, soon after the fake Hess dies in his jail cell, 27-year-old German police sergeant Hans Apfel accidentally discovers a sheaf of yellow documents amid the rubble of the recently demolished Spandau prison. Hans takes the mysterious papers to his wife Ilse who, with her father, a history professor, translates the Spandau Papers, as they come to be known, from their original Latin. What they uncover is a plot begun in 1941 involving Hitler, Hess, his SS-trained double and Nazi sympathizers in the House of Parliament, to kill Churchill and replace him with the appeasing Duke of Windsor. When word of the existence of the papers--which may indicate a present-day neo-Nazi/South African plan to annihilate Israel--gets out, KGB agents, the East German secret police and a rogue Mossad agent race to locate them. Though clearly written, with some entertaining speculation, this effort is overwhelmed by cliches. Author tour. (May)

About the Author, Greg Iles

Greg Iles gained notice for his smart, what-if storylines based on World War II scenarios; but when he turned to his own territory to write suspenseful, modern crime stories set in the American South, that's when readers really sat up and took notice.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Put Nazis in a thriller and you've got me almost every time. Spandau Phoenix is one of my favorites to star those swastika-wearing scumbags. The fascinating thing about this book, it focuses on a real-life occurrence -- one of WWII's greatest mysteries in fact. Why did Rudolf Hess, Hitler's right-hand man, embark on a daring solo flight to England? Intense excitement laced with historical intrigue at its best.

--Andrew LeCount

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

Rudolph Hess--Spandau prisoner number 7--dies in 1987. When a secret ``Hess diary'' is found at Spandau by a West German policeman, the various police and intelligence agencies stationed in Berlin become even more interested in Hess's 1941 flight to England. Did Hess have highly placed contacts there? Was he alone? Was his well-trained double captured instead? The chain reaction from the diary's discovery explodes around West Germany, England, and South Africa, uncovering secret alliances and double agents. This first novel, which attempts to fill in history's blanks and to tie the past with the present, has action, characters, and violence to spare. But the body count is high, even for this genre, and the novel loses its impact long before the end of the drawn-out plot. An optional purchase for large popular fiction collections.-- V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney

Mary Ellen Quinn

In the year 1987, following the apparent suicide of Rudolph Hess--notorious prisoner number seven--Spandau Prison is being demolished. Hans Apfel, a young West Berlin police sergeant, finds some sheets of onionskin in the rubble and takes them home. His wife, Ilse, hands them over to her grandfather, Professor Natterman, a historian who is interested in the mystery surrounding Hess' flight to Great Britain in 1941. These actions set in motion a series of international incidents, intelligence maneuvers, and murders. Dieter Hauer, a police captain and counterterrorist specialist who is also Hans' father, recognizes the hand of Phoenix, a secret neo-Nazi brotherhood. Ilse is kidnapped and taken to the South African estate of Alfred Horn, head of a multinational corporation called Phoenix AG. Horn demands the Spandau papers in return for Ilse's release. Hans, Dieter, Professor Natterman, an elderly Israeli named Jonas Stern, a German detective, a KGB agent, an assassin working for British intelligence, and a group of Israeli commandos converge on Horn's estate for the violent climax. Despite his plodding style and predictable outcome, first novelist Iles does a creditable job of managing his large cast of characters and maintaining suspense.