I feel very enthusiastic about this book. I think I chose to read it because I wondered if it was the sort of things that would appeal to Alistair MacLean fans.
I think it would appeal to Alistair MacLean fans. There's less emphasis here on military operations but plenty of action and adventure and most of the men in the story are ex-military.
I enjoyed it more because there was more of a backstory, not just for the protagonist (an agent with military intelligence), but for the villains.
The first chapter definitely reminded me of The Eye of the Needle, especially the way that you're just plunged into the story. Although it's a dark story, it's interesting. I certainly felt inspired to go on.
I wasn't familiar with the term "ratlines" which means the escape routes Nazis took to places like Ireland and Argentina. Of course, ex-Nazis also came to the U.S. Interesting, a new novel has just been published, called Warburg in Rome, which is about the Catholic Church's involvement in "ratlines." There was also a film about an ex-Nazi in flight, The Statement, from 2003, which starred Michael Caine.
There's a bit of Irish history here, especially about Ireland's complicated neutrality during the Second World War. Ireland's then government viewed neutrality as necessary, but the personal history of the protagonist demonstrates how complicated Ireland's position was.
My Irish history is spotty but at the start of the Second World War, the Irish Republic was less than two decades old. Ireland had struggled for centuries to achieve independence, and could easily have been invaded by Britain. How Britain felt about Ireland in 1939, I don't know. But I do know that in the 16th and 17th centuries, Britain feared attack through Ireland.
Yet many Irish men fought for the British, as did Albert Ryan, this novel's protagonist, an ex-military man bored by civilian life and now working for the Directorate of Irish intelligence. Shosrtly before John F. Kennedy, the Irish-American president, is to visit Ireland in August, 1963. His boss farms him out to Charles Haughey; Haughey's goal is to hush up the problem as much as possible. He knows that publicity about the sanctuary Ireland has given ex-Nazis will sour the good feelings produced by the president's visit.
Ryan is troubled by his mission, which is to get down to the bottom of a series of murders of ex-Nazis who've found refuge in Ireland. He feels that finding the killers is nearly the same thing as protecting Otto Skorzeny and the other ex-Nazis in the novel.
The second half of the book is full of double-cross and even triple-cross, with plenty of action and suspense. I was surprised by the book's ending. There are at least two scenes of torture. I tend to ignore these kinds of things when I come across them in books, and I imagine that others do, too, but I felt my recommendation had to include that notice.
Neville provides a bibliography of some of the sources he used in researching his novel:
Fugitive Ireland: European Minority Nationalists and Irish Political Asylum, 1937-2008, by Daniel Leach. Four Courts Press.
Commando Extraordinary: Otto Skorzeny, by Charles Foley, Cassell Military Classics.
Rescuing Mussolini: Gran Sasso 1943, by Robert Forcyzyk, Osprey Publishing.
Haughey's Millions: Charlie's Money Trail, by Colm Keena, Gill & Macmillan.
JFK in Ireland: Four Days that Changed a President, by Ryan Tubridy, Collins.
News from a New Republic: Ireland in the 1950s, by Tom Garvin, Gill & Macmillan.
Neville states that Cathal O'Shannon's documentary Ireland's Nazis "first planted the seeds of this story" in his mind.
I think it would appeal to Alistair MacLean fans. There's less emphasis here on military operations but plenty of action and adventure and most of the men in the story are ex-military.
I enjoyed it more because there was more of a backstory, not just for the protagonist (an agent with military intelligence), but for the villains.
The first chapter definitely reminded me of The Eye of the Needle, especially the way that you're just plunged into the story. Although it's a dark story, it's interesting. I certainly felt inspired to go on.
I wasn't familiar with the term "ratlines" which means the escape routes Nazis took to places like Ireland and Argentina. Of course, ex-Nazis also came to the U.S. Interesting, a new novel has just been published, called Warburg in Rome, which is about the Catholic Church's involvement in "ratlines." There was also a film about an ex-Nazi in flight, The Statement, from 2003, which starred Michael Caine.
There's a bit of Irish history here, especially about Ireland's complicated neutrality during the Second World War. Ireland's then government viewed neutrality as necessary, but the personal history of the protagonist demonstrates how complicated Ireland's position was.
My Irish history is spotty but at the start of the Second World War, the Irish Republic was less than two decades old. Ireland had struggled for centuries to achieve independence, and could easily have been invaded by Britain. How Britain felt about Ireland in 1939, I don't know. But I do know that in the 16th and 17th centuries, Britain feared attack through Ireland.
Yet many Irish men fought for the British, as did Albert Ryan, this novel's protagonist, an ex-military man bored by civilian life and now working for the Directorate of Irish intelligence. Shosrtly before John F. Kennedy, the Irish-American president, is to visit Ireland in August, 1963. His boss farms him out to Charles Haughey; Haughey's goal is to hush up the problem as much as possible. He knows that publicity about the sanctuary Ireland has given ex-Nazis will sour the good feelings produced by the president's visit.
Ryan is troubled by his mission, which is to get down to the bottom of a series of murders of ex-Nazis who've found refuge in Ireland. He feels that finding the killers is nearly the same thing as protecting Otto Skorzeny and the other ex-Nazis in the novel.
The second half of the book is full of double-cross and even triple-cross, with plenty of action and suspense. I was surprised by the book's ending. There are at least two scenes of torture. I tend to ignore these kinds of things when I come across them in books, and I imagine that others do, too, but I felt my recommendation had to include that notice.
Neville provides a bibliography of some of the sources he used in researching his novel:
Fugitive Ireland: European Minority Nationalists and Irish Political Asylum, 1937-2008, by Daniel Leach. Four Courts Press.
Commando Extraordinary: Otto Skorzeny, by Charles Foley, Cassell Military Classics.
Rescuing Mussolini: Gran Sasso 1943, by Robert Forcyzyk, Osprey Publishing.
Haughey's Millions: Charlie's Money Trail, by Colm Keena, Gill & Macmillan.
JFK in Ireland: Four Days that Changed a President, by Ryan Tubridy, Collins.
News from a New Republic: Ireland in the 1950s, by Tom Garvin, Gill & Macmillan.
Neville states that Cathal O'Shannon's documentary Ireland's Nazis "first planted the seeds of this story" in his mind.
