Robert Craven: Zinnman

Click to see in Amazon

This is a follow up to Robert Craven's first WWII page-turning espionage thriller "Get LENIN". This time those of you who have read that book (and you really should read it first) will know the key characters, especially Eva Molenaar the sultry Polish spy who has risked her life to get information by consorting with key players in the Reich, and her enigmatic MI5 spymasters Henry Chainbridge, and blind Peter De Witte.

This time we are also re-introduced to Nick Brandt and his small squad of ex-German soldiers who have been found asylum in Switzerland by Chainbridge after they were betrayed by SS General Metzger in the Lenin affair. As a German under a special obligation to the British, Brandt is in a difficult position, which is complicated by his increasingly loving relationship with Eva.

MI5 discovers that the Germans and Japanese are developing an extremely dangerous chemical weapon in Switzerland and are adapting a V1 rocket to deliver it with enormous loss of life. Brandt and his group are sent to destroy the underground production facilities and Eva is once again putting her life on the line to find out more from Nazi sympathisers in the US and Switzerland. Brandt is keen to get his revenge against Metzger who is also involved with the delivery of the new weapon.

Craven writes a tense and exciting WWII adventure moving from China to Germany, the US, England, Switzerland and Norway at cracking pace. The great team of characters he created in "Get Lenin" are once again at the front of the action.

I probably enjoyed this book more than the first one and am on tenterhooks for the sequel that seems to be on the cards from the finish of the book.

Robert Craven: Get Lenin

Click to see in Amazon

I like WWII espionage/thrillers, and this is an unexpectedly good one. In some ways it reminded me of the classic Jack Higgins' book - "The Eagle has Landed" - where the Germans tried to kidnap Churchill to demoralise the British war effort. This time the plot is to "kidnap" Lenin's body and put it on display in Berlin to demoralise the Soviet people.

We meet Eva Molenaar when her boy-friend is killed by Nazi brownshirts. When she recovers from the shock she vows to get revenge, and that revenge comes when she is recruited by Polish intelligence and then by MI5 to get them information from inside Germany. With her considerable language skills and and beauty she befriends the Mosley clique in England and meets a rich US sympathiser who has entry into Hitler's inner circle.

The seductive Polish-born spy puts her body on the line at the heart of the Reich to provide British spymaster Henry Chainbridge with vital intelligence about German plans, especially one concocted by Himmler to kidnap Lenin's mausoleum as the German armies close in on Moscow.

While I found some of the kidnapping action a bit over the top it would probably make a great movie. This was a good  and enjoyable first novel by Robert Craven and I look forward to reading the sequel Zinnman very soon.