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The Deadly Embrace: A World War II Thriller
Arriving in London to join the staff of SHAEF in the aftermath of a massive Luftwaffe bombing attack, Second Lieutenant Liza Marantz teams up with Major Sam Taggart on a mission to protect D-Day plans and investigate the murders of two high-ranking officials' mistresses. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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70 people want to read
About the author
Robert J. Mrazek
30 books70 followersRobert Jan Mrazek was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 3rd Congressonal District on Long Island for most of the 1980s.
He was born in Newport, Rhode Island, but grew up in Huntington, New York. He graduated from Cornell University in 1967. In 1967, he entered the United States Navy.
Mrazek was elected as a Democrat to the 98th United States Congress, defeating one term Republican incumbent John LeBoutillier. Mrazek served in the House from 1983 until 1993.
While in Congress, he coauthored the law that saved the Manassas battlefield from being bulldozed for a shopping center. He also authored the Tongass Timber Reform Act, the Amerasian Homecoming Act, which brought nineteen thousand children fathered by Americans during the Vietnam War to the US, and the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, which set up the federal registry in the Library of Congress to protect films of cultural importance.
Since retiring from Congress, Mrazek has written ten books. He also wrote and co-directed a feature film called The Congressman, that was released in 2016.
Mrazek is the author of seven novels, including Stonewall's Gold, Unholy Fire, The Deadly Embrace, Valhalla, The Bone Hunters, Dead Man's Bridge, and And the Sparrow Fell.
In 2000, Stonewall's Gold won the Michael Shaara Prize as the best Civil War novel of the year. In 2007, Deadly Embrace won the W.Y. Boyd Prize for Excellence in Military Fiction from the American Library Association.
Mrazek has also written two critically acclaimed non-fiction works, including A Dawn Like Thunder, which was named Best Book (American History) by the Washington Post, and To Kingdom Come, the story of a disastrous mission by the US 8th Air Force over Germany in 1943.
He was born in Newport, Rhode Island, but grew up in Huntington, New York. He graduated from Cornell University in 1967. In 1967, he entered the United States Navy.
Mrazek was elected as a Democrat to the 98th United States Congress, defeating one term Republican incumbent John LeBoutillier. Mrazek served in the House from 1983 until 1993.
While in Congress, he coauthored the law that saved the Manassas battlefield from being bulldozed for a shopping center. He also authored the Tongass Timber Reform Act, the Amerasian Homecoming Act, which brought nineteen thousand children fathered by Americans during the Vietnam War to the US, and the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, which set up the federal registry in the Library of Congress to protect films of cultural importance.
Since retiring from Congress, Mrazek has written ten books. He also wrote and co-directed a feature film called The Congressman, that was released in 2016.
Mrazek is the author of seven novels, including Stonewall's Gold, Unholy Fire, The Deadly Embrace, Valhalla, The Bone Hunters, Dead Man's Bridge, and And the Sparrow Fell.
In 2000, Stonewall's Gold won the Michael Shaara Prize as the best Civil War novel of the year. In 2007, Deadly Embrace won the W.Y. Boyd Prize for Excellence in Military Fiction from the American Library Association.
Mrazek has also written two critically acclaimed non-fiction works, including A Dawn Like Thunder, which was named Best Book (American History) by the Washington Post, and To Kingdom Come, the story of a disastrous mission by the US 8th Air Force over Germany in 1943.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 13, 2016
The blurb says "A razor-sharp thriller, rich with crackling dialogue and pulse-pounding suspense, that ingeniously interweaves fiction and history." Written in 2006 and based in London in late 1943.
Well, it starts this way, with a pair of army security Americans, male and female, trying to solve the murders of female workers involved with senior officers who might have let slip details of the invasion of Europe. All while London is being bombed nightly. If only it had stayed based in London.
BUT, the second half loses focus and turns into a country house romance, then finishes with a boy's adventure story ending.
Disappointing.
Well, it starts this way, with a pair of army security Americans, male and female, trying to solve the murders of female workers involved with senior officers who might have let slip details of the invasion of Europe. All while London is being bombed nightly. If only it had stayed based in London.
BUT, the second half loses focus and turns into a country house romance, then finishes with a boy's adventure story ending.
Disappointing.
January 5, 2019
When I first heard this book's premise, I was immediately intrigued. The D-Day invasion (aka Operation Overlord) is one of modern history's great "what ifs", with most speculation generally agreeing that, had it failed, the outcome of WWII may well have been quite different. So a plot revolving around the possible leakage of the D-Day plans to a German spy sounds like cracking great stuff, doesn't it?
Well, yes, and after my momentary excitement, I realized I'd read a book with a similar plot just last year. That book was The Cooler, by George Markstein, and was a bestseller back in 1974. And then a moment later, I remembered reading another thriller with the same premise, as a child. That was Ken Follett's The Eye of the Needle, which was a bestseller circa 1978, and was also made into a clunky movie. A few days later, I was telling a friend about this coincidence, and he told me of yet two more bestsellers based on this premise: Night of the Fox by Jack Higgins (1986) and The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva (1996)! So, it would appear that this framework is good for one or two bestsellers a decade, and here is Mrazek with his entry.
Originality of premise aside, this is a mostly engaging and well-written period thriller. The heroine is Liza Marantz, a young Jewish forensic pathologist who enlisted in the U.S. Army and has arrived in England as the book starts. She is put to work for Major Taggart, an ex-New York City homicide detective now working for SHAEF's (ie. the Allied high command) head of security. His job is to make sure that none of the 400+ people with direct information about the time and location of the D-Day landings inadvertently or maliciously leaks that information. Liza starts off working for him as a mail censor, tediously reading through all outgoing correspondence, and in these early chapters, we are introduced to the wartime London of the Baby Blitz, food shortages, housing shortages, and the American occupation. The plot picks up when both women Liza shares an office with turn up dead within days of each other. This leads to Maj. Taggart and Liza teaming up to try and solve the murders and more importantly, determine if D-Day security has been compromised via pillow talk. This leads them into a corrupt world of arrogant high-ranking officers with unpleasant sexual appetites. At the same time, Liza is introduced to England's upper crust, one dashing member of which tugs at her heartstrings.
While the atmosphere is pretty good, the writing smooth, and the pacing nice, there are a few quibbles to be had with the book. One being the totally unnecessary coincidence of Liza's three officemates (a WAC, a Wren, and a codebreaker) all being central to the plot. They all worked on different projects, and there is absolutely no plot advantage to having them all work in the same place. Liza could have learned the clues she needed about them plenty of other ways. Another minor flaw is the obviousness of the clue to both the traitor's identity -- thriller writers everywhere take note, any time you make a big deal of someone's hair color, the reader's going to it's important! A final quibble is that the dialogue sometimes seems a bit off. For example, it seems highly unlikely that an Oxbridge-educated gentleman, no matter how unpleasant, would plop down at a table in a club where some acquaintances are dining with a young woman he doesn't know, and start talking about another woman's "a**"! Similarly, a number of gentlemen bandy the word "bloody" about in Liza's presence without any trace of self-consciousness. I will grant that the war brought about great social changes and informality, but these kinds of phrases stuck out. These quibbles aside, the book is a fun read, and Liza is a heroine who will appeal to anyone who likes their women smart and sure of themselves.
Well, yes, and after my momentary excitement, I realized I'd read a book with a similar plot just last year. That book was The Cooler, by George Markstein, and was a bestseller back in 1974. And then a moment later, I remembered reading another thriller with the same premise, as a child. That was Ken Follett's The Eye of the Needle, which was a bestseller circa 1978, and was also made into a clunky movie. A few days later, I was telling a friend about this coincidence, and he told me of yet two more bestsellers based on this premise: Night of the Fox by Jack Higgins (1986) and The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva (1996)! So, it would appear that this framework is good for one or two bestsellers a decade, and here is Mrazek with his entry.
Originality of premise aside, this is a mostly engaging and well-written period thriller. The heroine is Liza Marantz, a young Jewish forensic pathologist who enlisted in the U.S. Army and has arrived in England as the book starts. She is put to work for Major Taggart, an ex-New York City homicide detective now working for SHAEF's (ie. the Allied high command) head of security. His job is to make sure that none of the 400+ people with direct information about the time and location of the D-Day landings inadvertently or maliciously leaks that information. Liza starts off working for him as a mail censor, tediously reading through all outgoing correspondence, and in these early chapters, we are introduced to the wartime London of the Baby Blitz, food shortages, housing shortages, and the American occupation. The plot picks up when both women Liza shares an office with turn up dead within days of each other. This leads to Maj. Taggart and Liza teaming up to try and solve the murders and more importantly, determine if D-Day security has been compromised via pillow talk. This leads them into a corrupt world of arrogant high-ranking officers with unpleasant sexual appetites. At the same time, Liza is introduced to England's upper crust, one dashing member of which tugs at her heartstrings.
While the atmosphere is pretty good, the writing smooth, and the pacing nice, there are a few quibbles to be had with the book. One being the totally unnecessary coincidence of Liza's three officemates (a WAC, a Wren, and a codebreaker) all being central to the plot. They all worked on different projects, and there is absolutely no plot advantage to having them all work in the same place. Liza could have learned the clues she needed about them plenty of other ways. Another minor flaw is the obviousness of the clue to both the traitor's identity -- thriller writers everywhere take note, any time you make a big deal of someone's hair color, the reader's going to it's important! A final quibble is that the dialogue sometimes seems a bit off. For example, it seems highly unlikely that an Oxbridge-educated gentleman, no matter how unpleasant, would plop down at a table in a club where some acquaintances are dining with a young woman he doesn't know, and start talking about another woman's "a**"! Similarly, a number of gentlemen bandy the word "bloody" about in Liza's presence without any trace of self-consciousness. I will grant that the war brought about great social changes and informality, but these kinds of phrases stuck out. These quibbles aside, the book is a fun read, and Liza is a heroine who will appeal to anyone who likes their women smart and sure of themselves.
October 20, 2020
I liked this story. I had not figured out whodunnit by the end, which is always fun! The WWII setting was interesting.
November 27, 2021
Clever
July 23, 2012
Mrazek has done a great job in recreating the atmosphere of pre-invasion WWII London. I was really drawn into the murder mystery for the first half of the book, but then it got silly. Once the action moves out of London, the book slows down to a crawl just when it should be picking up speed. The resolution is not satisfactory.
January 9, 2009
gets really into autopsies and forensic psychology to discover the mystery
September 1, 2009
A very good mystery tale of murder, D-Day preparation, espionage, forensic (ala CSI)work. Thoroughly enjoyable.
June 23, 2011
3.5 = WWII in London with a couple of Americans trying to ensure Germany does not learn when and where the great invasion is to take place
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews