Stealing
Trinity
Non-series
Ward
Larsen
Oceanview
Publishing (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-933515-17-1 (1933515171)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-17-5 (9781933515175)
Publication Date: October 2008
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): When the balance of world power is at stake, the fight
for control could be explosive. 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.
Review:
Ward Larsen's second thriller, Stealing
Trinity,
wraps a fictional narrative around the unexpected Japanese attack on,
and subsequent sinking of, the battle cruiser Indianapolis in the south
Pacific just two weeks after the successful test of the atomic bomb in
New Mexico in July, 1945.
Just weeks before the April 1945 surrender of Germany during World War
II, three high ranking German officers agree on a strategy to secure
the future of the Reich by extracting a spy that was working on a
secret project with the Americans in New Mexico code named Manhattan
Project. They enlist the aid of a sniper, Alexander Braun, whose
mission it is to take the spy and as much information as he can gather
to a rendezvous point in South America. An aide to the officers who was
ordered to destroy information related to the plan (but reads some of
it before doing so) is later captured and interrogated by a British
Intelligence officer Michael Thatcher. When Thatcher warns the FBI that
a Nazi spy may be headed to the US, they not only officially deny the
existence of a Manhattan Project but that with the surrender of
Germany, a Nazi spy would have no motivation to continue any assignment
he may have been working on. Thatcher is convinced there is more to the
story and travels to the US where he learns that Braun attended Harvard
University before the war and was romantically linked at the time to
Lydia Cole, a Newport socialite. On a hunch, he travels to Newport and
finds Braun a guest in the Cole residence. Braun escapes with Thatcher,
and later Lydia, following him across country, determined to thwart
whatever scheme Braun may be planning.
Larsen strikes just the right balance in pacing Stealing Trinity,
keeping the plot moving briskly forward but still providing time for
readers to get to know the three primary characters yet not getting
weighed down with potentially cumbersome historical minutiae. The plot
is cleverly devised and provides a rational, even reasonable,
explanation of why a Japanese submarine would be in a position to take
down the Indianapolis. But the real reason Stealing Trinity
succeeds is due to the exceptionally drawn characters of Braun,
Thatcher, and Lydia. Braun's cunning and ruthlessness is depicted
perfectly and his backstory (born in America to a father, a Nazi
sympathizer, who forced him to leave college and serve Hitler, later
returning to America, home as it were, albeit on a mission for Germany)
adds color and depth. Thatcher, the reserved Englishman who lost a leg
in the previous war but doesn't let a prosthetic slow him down, plays
the cat to Braun's mouse. And Lydia, the pampered daughter of American
aristocracy, shows spirited determination in chasing Braun, mostly for
personal reasons, but also to demonstrate a new-found independence to
her protective father. A solid supporting cast of characters are
introduced as needed to move the plot forward, but they are clearly in
the shadows of Braun, Thatcher, and Lydia. That in the final pages all
three abruptly step out of character, one more than the others, is only
ever so slightly disappointing.
Stealing
Trinity is an exceptional
thriller that will captivate readers with its strong plot and even
stronger characters. It is highly recommended.
Special thanks to Maryglenn McCombs Book Publicity for providing a copy of Stealing Trinity for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Stealing Trinity? How would you rate it?
Thrillers by this author …
The
Perfect
Assassin
Oceanview (Hardcover), April 2006
ISBN-10: 1-933515-01-5 (1933515015)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-01-4 (9781933515014)
Stealing Trinity
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover), October 2008
ISBN-10: 1-933515-17-1 (1933515171)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-17-5 (9781933515175)
Omnimystery
keywords for Stealing Trinity
...
Location(s) referenced: Berlin, Germany, London, England, Newport,
Rhode
Island, New Mexico, Guam..
