Codewort Cromwell

by Ted Allbeury

Even in the heady days of 1940, there was one invasion Adolf Hitler would not risk - the invasion of Britain. However, the followers of Max von Bayer were a desperate group who were prepared to defy the Fuhrer's ultimate authority and face almost certain death.

175 pages, Paperback

First published November 26, 1981

About the author

1917 - 2005. Also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Butler and Patrick Kelly.

Ted Allbeury was a lieutenant-colonel in the Intelligence Corps during World War II, and later a successful executive in the fields of marketing, advertising and radio. He began his writing career in the early 1970s and became well known for his espionage novels, but also published one highly-praised general novel, THE CHOICE, and a short story collection, OTHER KINDS OF TREASON. His novels have been published in twenty-three languages, including Russian. He died on 4th December 2005.


See also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/j...
and
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/t...

Reviews

[Jak60 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a rather bland story, despite its bleak ending; for the reader's luck, the novel is short and as usual well written so getting to the last page is not a big effort. But the story has problems of plausibility plus it is not very thrilling.

Ted Allbeury was an extremely prolific writer with an impressive production of 44 novels; most of them are classic cold war espionage thrillers plus a few SOE stories. The quality of his books was somewhat volatile, sort of hit-and-miss, which is probably what made of him an overall under-rated genre author. Those willing to dig into his vast production can be rewarded with a handful of gems and a couple of golden nuggets. At the bottom of this review, my personal guide into the Allbeury "mine".

Outstanding
Seeds Of Treason

Very good
Wilderness Of Mirrors
The Other Side Of Silence
A Time Without Shadows
The Dangerous Edge
Moscow Quadrille
Lonely Margins
Shadow Os A Doubt
The Lune-Crosser
Beyond The Silence
The Only Good German
The Special Collection

Average
The Twentieth Of January
The Crossing
The Lantern Network
Shadow Of Shadows
Palomino Blonde
As Time Goes By

Can Skip
Snowball
Pay Any Price
Show Me A Hero
Deep Purple
No Place To Hide
The Girl From Addis
The Long Run

[Philip Higgins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy this is one bleak book. Like most Allbeury novels, it is set in the Second World but doesn't then leap forward to the Cold War. Our protagonist is Max von Bayer, a rich equestrian who falls for a young British girl who also happens to be Jewish. When war breaks out he puts together a team to cross the Channel and cause havoc - he's upset that the German armed services have stifled Adolf's plans for invasion.

I almost found myself rooting for this band of misfit saboteurs. The finale is devastating and at 186 pages there's not an ounce of fat on this book. The romance element added a certain poignancy and I enjoyed the author's take on the opening rounds of the war eg. how the Blitz came about by accident. Did Roosevelt really issue a secret ultimatum to Hitler that any invasion of Britain would result in a US declaration of war? Sometimes difficult to tell where the history ends and the fiction begins.

The usual competent thriller but it felt a bit flat somehow, lacking the action of say "The Eagle Has Landed".