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Joe Johnson #1
The Last Nazi
The buried contents of a Nazi train. An aging SS mass-murderer. And the wartime secrets of a U.S. presidential hopeful’s Jewish family, hidden for seven decades.
War crimes investigator and ex-CIA officer Joe Johnson is more than intrigued when he learns of a link between the contents of a Nazi train, hidden by Hitler's Third Reich, a ruthless blackmail plot, and financing for a U.S. presidential hopeful’s 2012 campaign.
But the investigation becomes bigger and more deeply personal than Johnson expects when it leads him toward an SS Holocaust killer who escaped his net years earlier, and propels him into a deadly conflict.
Soon there are high-level intelligence and criminal networks combining against Johnson across three continents.
He finds himself inextricably caught up in a terrifying quest to win justice, to avenge his mother’s tortured past and revive his flagging career.
With dramatic settings, explosive action and characters readers will come to love, The Last Nazi is a gripping full-length thriller—the first in a series featuring Joe Johnson.
Buy The Last Nazi today and read how Johnson puts himself right in the firing line in his fight for justice against the very worst type of criminal.
War crimes investigator and ex-CIA officer Joe Johnson is more than intrigued when he learns of a link between the contents of a Nazi train, hidden by Hitler's Third Reich, a ruthless blackmail plot, and financing for a U.S. presidential hopeful’s 2012 campaign.
But the investigation becomes bigger and more deeply personal than Johnson expects when it leads him toward an SS Holocaust killer who escaped his net years earlier, and propels him into a deadly conflict.
Soon there are high-level intelligence and criminal networks combining against Johnson across three continents.
He finds himself inextricably caught up in a terrifying quest to win justice, to avenge his mother’s tortured past and revive his flagging career.
With dramatic settings, explosive action and characters readers will come to love, The Last Nazi is a gripping full-length thriller—the first in a series featuring Joe Johnson.
Buy The Last Nazi today and read how Johnson puts himself right in the firing line in his fight for justice against the very worst type of criminal.
506 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2017
6383 people are currently reading
1247 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Turpin
13 books124 followersAndrew is a former journalist who has always had a love of writing and a passion for reading good thrillers. Now he has finally put the two interests together.
His first book in the Joe Johnson thriller series, The Last Nazi, was published in August 2017, and the second, The Old Bridge, in January 2018. The third, Bandit Country, followed in February 2018. In January 2019 the fourth, Stalin's Final Sting, was published along with a prequel to the series, entitled The Afghan. Book #5 in the series, The Nazi's Son, appeared in November 2019, followed by book 6, The Black Sea, published in May 2020.
The themes behind these thrillers also pull together some of Andrew’s other interests, particularly history, world news, and travel. They explore the ways in which events and human behaviors deep into the past continue to impact on modern society, politics and business.
All of Andrew's books draw strongly on these themes. They feature Joe Johnson, an ex-CIA officer and former U.S. Nazi hunter with the Office of Special Investigations, part of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
Johnson has a passion for justice and a drive to investigate unsolved war crimes in different parts of the world.
Andrew studied history at Loughborough University and worked for many years as a business and financial journalist before becoming a corporate and financial communications adviser with several large energy companies.
He originally came from Grantham, Lincolnshire, and lives with his family in St. Albans in Hertfordshire, U.K.
His first book in the Joe Johnson thriller series, The Last Nazi, was published in August 2017, and the second, The Old Bridge, in January 2018. The third, Bandit Country, followed in February 2018. In January 2019 the fourth, Stalin's Final Sting, was published along with a prequel to the series, entitled The Afghan. Book #5 in the series, The Nazi's Son, appeared in November 2019, followed by book 6, The Black Sea, published in May 2020.
The themes behind these thrillers also pull together some of Andrew’s other interests, particularly history, world news, and travel. They explore the ways in which events and human behaviors deep into the past continue to impact on modern society, politics and business.
All of Andrew's books draw strongly on these themes. They feature Joe Johnson, an ex-CIA officer and former U.S. Nazi hunter with the Office of Special Investigations, part of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
Johnson has a passion for justice and a drive to investigate unsolved war crimes in different parts of the world.
Andrew studied history at Loughborough University and worked for many years as a business and financial journalist before becoming a corporate and financial communications adviser with several large energy companies.
He originally came from Grantham, Lincolnshire, and lives with his family in St. Albans in Hertfordshire, U.K.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 251 reviews
April 4, 2018
This book started off really well for me and I thought I was going to love it...... I did enjoy it despite the rather convoluted and at times silly plot. I could not quite get my head around one or two of the rather implausible plot turns! Joe Johnston is still developing in this first novel, might be interesting to see how he turns out in the second and third novels in this series. It is a fast paced novel and there is plenty of action for action lovers!
June 9, 2018
The Last Nazi is an average action thriller but it does not really have that 'oomph'.
The story was decently complex with some characters having realistic motivations and the writing is fine. Unfortunately, there is no real sense of tension that we get, even during, action scenes or the climax, which sort of makes everything fizzle out.
The story was decently complex with some characters having realistic motivations and the writing is fine. Unfortunately, there is no real sense of tension that we get, even during, action scenes or the climax, which sort of makes everything fizzle out.
August 13, 2017
This is an action packed, fast paced, intriguing book of deception, deceit, conspiracy. It spans several continents and events that started in 1944 several decades later come to light in 2011.
I really enjoyed this book. The thing that soon became obvious as I read, was the attention to detail. The historical aspect has been very well researched and executed, within a very action packed and fast paced story. There are certain things from the living conditions of prisoners in concentration camps that are not pleasant reading, and they shouldn’t be, and I felt the author used enough information to keep the story flowing. He has not got bogged down with too much historical information, instead he has found a good balance that is essential to a certain sub-plots of the story. The same balance has been found with the political aspects of the story as well, enough to be helpful but not overly done. I think what I am trying to say is that, there is a lot of sub plots within the main story, therefore a lot of detail, but at no point do you lose the rhythm or the main points of the story. All these aspects have been very well and cleverly intertwined to give the reader a great reading experience. It incorporates scandal, war crimes, Nazism, corruption and revenge. The characters have been very well-developed, they are strong and well described. I thought all the charcters mentioned were easily identifiable and memorable.
The story begins with Daniel and Jacob Kudrow, they are prisoners of Gross-Rosen concentration camp. When the reader first meets them they are in a collapsed tunnel, but along with other prisoners and guards they are able to use side tunnels to get out. The tunnels are used for storage, several wooden crates have been stored there, it will take over 60 years for the contents to be revealed. Now in 2011 the reader is brought to the main characters. Joe Johnson, a widower with two children, he is of Polish decent. He teams up with Fiona Heppenstall a political journalist with “Inside Track”. They are both attending a campaign rally by David Kudrow. His brother Nathaniel has something to tell both Joe and Fiona, but they never find out what that actually was. With her journalistic interests piqued, Fiona cannot let go the feeling that something is amiss, she enrolls Joe in to help her find the story. They both have a background in war crimes, giving lectures and help bring down those involved in the atrocities. What they unearth with this investigation. There are secrets that have been hidden for decades, they will close certain chapters in the lives of some, bring some form justice to the lives of some and open the flood barriers in lives of others.
I would definitely recommend to readers who like action and adventure, thriller, crime and mystery genres.
As I read past the story I was really pleased to discover that this is the first in a series of books featuring Joe Johnson, and I for one cannot wait to read more. Thoroughly enjoyed this one, and can’t wait for the next, and the next, and the next!
I would like to take the opportunity to thank Andrew Turpin for a copy of this e-book. My review and thoughts about this book are honest and unbiased.
I really enjoyed this book. The thing that soon became obvious as I read, was the attention to detail. The historical aspect has been very well researched and executed, within a very action packed and fast paced story. There are certain things from the living conditions of prisoners in concentration camps that are not pleasant reading, and they shouldn’t be, and I felt the author used enough information to keep the story flowing. He has not got bogged down with too much historical information, instead he has found a good balance that is essential to a certain sub-plots of the story. The same balance has been found with the political aspects of the story as well, enough to be helpful but not overly done. I think what I am trying to say is that, there is a lot of sub plots within the main story, therefore a lot of detail, but at no point do you lose the rhythm or the main points of the story. All these aspects have been very well and cleverly intertwined to give the reader a great reading experience. It incorporates scandal, war crimes, Nazism, corruption and revenge. The characters have been very well-developed, they are strong and well described. I thought all the charcters mentioned were easily identifiable and memorable.
The story begins with Daniel and Jacob Kudrow, they are prisoners of Gross-Rosen concentration camp. When the reader first meets them they are in a collapsed tunnel, but along with other prisoners and guards they are able to use side tunnels to get out. The tunnels are used for storage, several wooden crates have been stored there, it will take over 60 years for the contents to be revealed. Now in 2011 the reader is brought to the main characters. Joe Johnson, a widower with two children, he is of Polish decent. He teams up with Fiona Heppenstall a political journalist with “Inside Track”. They are both attending a campaign rally by David Kudrow. His brother Nathaniel has something to tell both Joe and Fiona, but they never find out what that actually was. With her journalistic interests piqued, Fiona cannot let go the feeling that something is amiss, she enrolls Joe in to help her find the story. They both have a background in war crimes, giving lectures and help bring down those involved in the atrocities. What they unearth with this investigation. There are secrets that have been hidden for decades, they will close certain chapters in the lives of some, bring some form justice to the lives of some and open the flood barriers in lives of others.
I would definitely recommend to readers who like action and adventure, thriller, crime and mystery genres.
As I read past the story I was really pleased to discover that this is the first in a series of books featuring Joe Johnson, and I for one cannot wait to read more. Thoroughly enjoyed this one, and can’t wait for the next, and the next, and the next!
I would like to take the opportunity to thank Andrew Turpin for a copy of this e-book. My review and thoughts about this book are honest and unbiased.
April 28, 2018
The Last Nazi is a fast moving historical fiction where present day ex CIA and OSI agent and Nazi hunter, Joe Johnson chases one that got away. The author takes the reader back in time to a concentration camp near Poland where a prison guard who enjoyed beating, humiliating and torturing prisoners, both men and women, was directing a prisoner work detail depositing Polish gold stolen by the Nazi’s into a mine. The tunnel the prisoners were working in collapsed allowing two Polish Jewish twin brothers to escape. The guard shot the remaining work detail, taking his anger from the escape out on them.
Over the years the twin brothers blackmailed the Nazi, who was hiding in South America under an assumed name, with the gold the recovered after their escape. The story heats up when an American presidential candidate’s campaign finances come under scrutiny. It’s a convoluted tail involving the candidate, CIA and Massaud agents, British SIS, American journalists and of course the lead character Joe Johnson. It is a well written and suspenseful novel worthy of reading. I plan to read more in the series.
Over the years the twin brothers blackmailed the Nazi, who was hiding in South America under an assumed name, with the gold the recovered after their escape. The story heats up when an American presidential candidate’s campaign finances come under scrutiny. It’s a convoluted tail involving the candidate, CIA and Massaud agents, British SIS, American journalists and of course the lead character Joe Johnson. It is a well written and suspenseful novel worthy of reading. I plan to read more in the series.
December 4, 2021
This has it all. Buried Nazi treasure, political wheeling and dealing, revenge, greed and ruthless killers. Joe Johnson has been hunting war criminals for years after a stint in the CIA. When rumors are leaked that Nazi treasure might finance the contender of the Republican party, a newspaper hires Johnson to find out the truth. But people don’t like having him poking into matters better left in the past. From the United States to Argentina and England to Poland, this story just doesn’t stop until the last bullet is fired.
December 18, 2020
This is the first book by this author that I have read. I thought the premise of this book was ok but it lacked speed to it. I think the writer has some talent but needed better direction from the editor. I think the first big mistake was that this book for the most part was written in the third person-but that is hard sometimes to tell in todays age. I felt this book needed to be in first person. This book wanted to have a big sprawling feel to it like a 70'screen play. I did not think it had the depth of character to pull this off. i thought the plot was kind of hard to believe a s it moved on and I never really cared about the main character or the bad guys. I thought some of the bad guy secondary characters were not need along some good guys who were needed. I thought the story dragged at times for a thriller and being in third person did not help that problem. I thought the end was meah. I was glad to be done with it. I have to say skip this one in the end and do not give it a spin.
July 15, 2021
It started off very good and at interesting pace, but lot of details and boring lengthy action or chasing scenes made it dull, I had to speed read it. The factual information was good and interesting a bit and the his grandmother's diary, the story base was good too, but the writing style was not that appealing, character development was good but less focused.
Anyway it was good to know someone is after the Nazis.
Anyway it was good to know someone is after the Nazis.
June 18, 2019
Got bored and quit
August 25, 2017
The Last Nazi by Andrew Turpin shows us that good writing can make even well-examined plot lines interesting and (somewhat) new. After the end of WWII, there seemed to be no end to themes exploring the Nazi soldiers that got away, stolen hoards of gold that reappeared through unexplained front organizations, speculation on what the world would look like if Germany had won the war, and the possible coming to power of a fourth Reich. This novel will revisit a combination of parts of those themes with a slightly new twist that makes this novel an interesting read. There are several mysteries with solutions that are hinted at in a step-by-step manner that should entertain the inquisitive reader's mind. All this is to say I liked this novel.
Jacob and Daniel were German prisoners forced to work in tunnels in Poland. Boxes of unidentified goods were being stored in vaults at the end of the tunnels. In the Prologue, we have a tunnel collapse. Many are killed and the survivors are shackled for a train trip back to camp incarceration. Because of the excitement of the tunnel collapse and bickering between guards as to who will be blamed for time and work lost, Jacob's hands were not secured tightly. He was able to free his twin brother Daniel but they had to jump from the train without being able to free other prisoners. We then move forward in time to the present day.
Our main protagonist, Joe Johnson, had a varied past that included stints with the OSS, an organization that later morphed into the CIA. He had a personal interest in hunting down war criminal as his relatives had been incarcerated in one of the more infamous death camps. These days, Joe is a sometime private investigator but also has earnings from giving lectures and collaborating on stories about his work as a Nazi hunter. Invited to a party, Joe meets former love interest and reporter Fiona. The fundraiser was to promote the campaign of David Kudrow, a Republican candidate, and opponent of Mitt Romney. David had a brother, Nathaniel, who had just suffered setbacks in the financial sector and was a bit envious of the increasingly famous David. Their father is Daniel, one of the twins who had escaped from the prisoner train. Daniel now lived in the US, Jacob lived in London. Presidential candidate David didn't seem to have much trouble with funding. His father and uncle were able to make frequent contributions to the campaign.
Nathaniel, the failed and envious brother likes to drink. In his talk with Joe Johnson, he reveals the name of the camp where his father and uncle had been imprisoned. Joe is surprised. It is the same camp where his relatives were imprisoned. Nathaniel probably knew this. Nathaniel goes on to hint at a dark source of campaign funding for brother David. Nathaniel knows that Joe has won awards for investigative reporting. Joe is hooked and agrees to meet Nathaniel later at a more discreet location for a longer talk. Nathaniel moves on to talk separately with Fiona. Attracted to her, Nathaniel seeds their conversation with more clues as to the source of David's financial support. Nathaniel suggests a later meeting at a pub to speak further of devious financial goings on. Nathaniel will not meet with either Joe or Fiona.
By this time, and we are only 8% through the novel in chapter three, the reader may have guessed that the escaped twin brothers had discovered there was gold in the boxes being sequestered by the soldiers and that after their escape they had managed to return in the confusion of postwar resettlement, seized (but not stolen) the gold, and were now putting it to good use for the family. But there were problems, ones explored by the rest of the novel.
There were minor mysteries such as: where did Nathaniel go? There were more important mysteries such as: how was the gold or money laundered in a way that it could be funneled to a current US presidential candidate? David was opposing Mit Romney and sitting President Obama. To accept money tainted with a Nazi past would be almost as absurdly impossible as a US Presidential candidate accepting campaign help from Russia. The novel proceeds with several clever twists and turns as false identities, shell companies, and financial fronts are explored. Joe Johnson is tenacious in his pursuit of truth, far more so than in his pursuit of Fiona.
There are several good subplots. There is gang strife as a younger group of gang members war with their aged leaders. The aged leaders are part of an organization linked with Jacob and Daniel. Investigator Joe has several links to former intelligence colleagues so readers experience a good spy story. Finally, there is last minute action that contributes several surprises to a well-planned ending that brings all parts of the story to a logical ending.
This is a solid read with surprises made more surprising by the paths that readers are enticed to follow. I look forward to reading more from this author.
Jacob and Daniel were German prisoners forced to work in tunnels in Poland. Boxes of unidentified goods were being stored in vaults at the end of the tunnels. In the Prologue, we have a tunnel collapse. Many are killed and the survivors are shackled for a train trip back to camp incarceration. Because of the excitement of the tunnel collapse and bickering between guards as to who will be blamed for time and work lost, Jacob's hands were not secured tightly. He was able to free his twin brother Daniel but they had to jump from the train without being able to free other prisoners. We then move forward in time to the present day.
Our main protagonist, Joe Johnson, had a varied past that included stints with the OSS, an organization that later morphed into the CIA. He had a personal interest in hunting down war criminal as his relatives had been incarcerated in one of the more infamous death camps. These days, Joe is a sometime private investigator but also has earnings from giving lectures and collaborating on stories about his work as a Nazi hunter. Invited to a party, Joe meets former love interest and reporter Fiona. The fundraiser was to promote the campaign of David Kudrow, a Republican candidate, and opponent of Mitt Romney. David had a brother, Nathaniel, who had just suffered setbacks in the financial sector and was a bit envious of the increasingly famous David. Their father is Daniel, one of the twins who had escaped from the prisoner train. Daniel now lived in the US, Jacob lived in London. Presidential candidate David didn't seem to have much trouble with funding. His father and uncle were able to make frequent contributions to the campaign.
Nathaniel, the failed and envious brother likes to drink. In his talk with Joe Johnson, he reveals the name of the camp where his father and uncle had been imprisoned. Joe is surprised. It is the same camp where his relatives were imprisoned. Nathaniel probably knew this. Nathaniel goes on to hint at a dark source of campaign funding for brother David. Nathaniel knows that Joe has won awards for investigative reporting. Joe is hooked and agrees to meet Nathaniel later at a more discreet location for a longer talk. Nathaniel moves on to talk separately with Fiona. Attracted to her, Nathaniel seeds their conversation with more clues as to the source of David's financial support. Nathaniel suggests a later meeting at a pub to speak further of devious financial goings on. Nathaniel will not meet with either Joe or Fiona.
By this time, and we are only 8% through the novel in chapter three, the reader may have guessed that the escaped twin brothers had discovered there was gold in the boxes being sequestered by the soldiers and that after their escape they had managed to return in the confusion of postwar resettlement, seized (but not stolen) the gold, and were now putting it to good use for the family. But there were problems, ones explored by the rest of the novel.
There were minor mysteries such as: where did Nathaniel go? There were more important mysteries such as: how was the gold or money laundered in a way that it could be funneled to a current US presidential candidate? David was opposing Mit Romney and sitting President Obama. To accept money tainted with a Nazi past would be almost as absurdly impossible as a US Presidential candidate accepting campaign help from Russia. The novel proceeds with several clever twists and turns as false identities, shell companies, and financial fronts are explored. Joe Johnson is tenacious in his pursuit of truth, far more so than in his pursuit of Fiona.
There are several good subplots. There is gang strife as a younger group of gang members war with their aged leaders. The aged leaders are part of an organization linked with Jacob and Daniel. Investigator Joe has several links to former intelligence colleagues so readers experience a good spy story. Finally, there is last minute action that contributes several surprises to a well-planned ending that brings all parts of the story to a logical ending.
This is a solid read with surprises made more surprising by the paths that readers are enticed to follow. I look forward to reading more from this author.
Read
March 16, 2018This book was all over the place. From DC to Maine to England to South America. I understand about character development, but do we have to know that the main character is widowed and has had flings with 3 separate women. Then there is the believability factor. Twin brothers who survived Nazi concentration camps or the fact that they were in the same camp as the main character's mother. The only saving grace is that I got this book on Kindle Unlimited, so it didn't cost me anything to not like this book.
August 16, 2017
The Last Nazi is unusual because for me it rests on a pivotal question of the notion that Concentration Camp Jews would rather blackmail the commander of the camp they suffered under rather than seek war criminal justice through The Hague. My expectation of a mystery-thriller based on such a notion would be an intense, fast-paced, dialogue rich read. The pace of the story varied as if you were going up and then down a hill which made staying engaged difficult. Towards the end of the book there was more excitement as the plot began to sort itself and become one cohesive story. A hindrance was too many sub-plots to give any one of them its proper due. The main characters were not feisty as you would expect and the female characters were more unhelpful than helpful and did not add any vim or vigor to character interaction or dialogue enrichment. The reading was tedious instead of game changing and incendiary. I truly believe if the sub-plots were trimmed down, more thought put into who’s the character, what interactions and experiences should be taking place and at what level, what could follow is would be a great book. (Note: "I received a free copy of this book and voluntarily chose to review.") -Tex.
January 31, 2018
A mix of historical fact from the remnants of the Second World War and memories of the Holocaust with modern day investigations of political funding and Nazi hunters.
A good thriller from an author who has thoroughly researched his back story and facts, whilst allowing some fictional adjustments, such as to the cave and tunnel system. Set almost a decade ago, the main story starts with a US presidential hopeful, descendant of a holocaust survivor.
Back in WWII, twin brothers are forced to dig tunnels by the staff of the concentration camp they are interred in. They survived and continued in the family’s jewellery business. Their grandson is the potential candidate.
A family link to the concentration camp the brothers were in, lead Joe Johnson, ex CIA officer and former Nazi hunter to take the fight up again and right an investigation he stopped years before.
A good mix between the stories of each family involved in the story and a great pace, once you get past the start, which sets up a lot of what comes after. Lots of government interaction with old relationships called upon in the CIA and MI6 to help in the investigation.
There are also back stories between countries in the blackmail and also safeguarding of unlikely subjects. Our main character is very believable, a former agent, somewhat rusty in his tradecraft and trying to get justice for family and thousands of other victims of the Holocaust.
It took me a while to get into as it was slower paced to start, but it then picks up with lots of action as the story progresses and the characters are very well developed. An interesting thriller combating wrongdoings of the past and to try and make sure we don’t forget the actions of some in WWII and the Holocaust and that the lessons from this are never forgotten nor repeated.
I liked the book and will follow on to read some more of the authors’ books and would recommend his books to others who love a good thriller which engages your brain and passes on a message at the same time.
I received a copy of this book through Bookfunnel and the author’s newsletter. I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.
A good thriller from an author who has thoroughly researched his back story and facts, whilst allowing some fictional adjustments, such as to the cave and tunnel system. Set almost a decade ago, the main story starts with a US presidential hopeful, descendant of a holocaust survivor.
Back in WWII, twin brothers are forced to dig tunnels by the staff of the concentration camp they are interred in. They survived and continued in the family’s jewellery business. Their grandson is the potential candidate.
A family link to the concentration camp the brothers were in, lead Joe Johnson, ex CIA officer and former Nazi hunter to take the fight up again and right an investigation he stopped years before.
A good mix between the stories of each family involved in the story and a great pace, once you get past the start, which sets up a lot of what comes after. Lots of government interaction with old relationships called upon in the CIA and MI6 to help in the investigation.
There are also back stories between countries in the blackmail and also safeguarding of unlikely subjects. Our main character is very believable, a former agent, somewhat rusty in his tradecraft and trying to get justice for family and thousands of other victims of the Holocaust.
It took me a while to get into as it was slower paced to start, but it then picks up with lots of action as the story progresses and the characters are very well developed. An interesting thriller combating wrongdoings of the past and to try and make sure we don’t forget the actions of some in WWII and the Holocaust and that the lessons from this are never forgotten nor repeated.
I liked the book and will follow on to read some more of the authors’ books and would recommend his books to others who love a good thriller which engages your brain and passes on a message at the same time.
I received a copy of this book through Bookfunnel and the author’s newsletter. I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.
August 17, 2017
David Kudrow wants more than anything to be the President of the United States. And in late 2011 he is in a good position to win the Republican Party nomination for the 2012 election. But his dreams are endangered by a revelation from the distant past. And so the riveting ride begins and it doesn’t let up.
I love a thriller that has complexity that makes you think. The Last Nazi does just that. It’s easy to read and once I started, it was hard to put down.
A climactic series of events is triggered when David’s brother, Nathaniel, hints to journalist Fiona Heppenstall David’s campaign funding may include Nazi money. The next day Nathanial is found dead. Joe Johnson, ex-CIA agent, among other things, joins forces with Fiona to uncover the truth. For Johnson, the quest is personal. He finds out the Nazi he seeks tortured his mother.
Joe and Fiona are joined by the disillusioned and capable UK secret intelligence service agent Jayne Robinson.
Two Jewish brothers who escaped the Nazis’ clutches are at the centre of the multi-layered revelations that Turpin skilfully unveils. The brothers have set up a complex business arrangement that rips off The Last Nazi. They’ve reaped the rewards of their deception for decades. But the Last Nazi’s son, Ignacio, suspects something is up and investigates. He soon discovers Joe is looking for the same thing.
The CIA doesn’t want secrets revealed. Joe’s former employer does all it can to prevent him knowing the truth. The forces opposing Joe, Fiona and Jayne gather apace culminating in a nail-biting climax.
Joe has history with Fiona and Jayne; the unacknowledged imperceptible tension gives the novel and added layer of stress. Andrew Turpin has woven a sophisticated web of intrigue that will engross, entertain and enlighten.
I love a thriller that has complexity that makes you think. The Last Nazi does just that. It’s easy to read and once I started, it was hard to put down.
A climactic series of events is triggered when David’s brother, Nathaniel, hints to journalist Fiona Heppenstall David’s campaign funding may include Nazi money. The next day Nathanial is found dead. Joe Johnson, ex-CIA agent, among other things, joins forces with Fiona to uncover the truth. For Johnson, the quest is personal. He finds out the Nazi he seeks tortured his mother.
Joe and Fiona are joined by the disillusioned and capable UK secret intelligence service agent Jayne Robinson.
Two Jewish brothers who escaped the Nazis’ clutches are at the centre of the multi-layered revelations that Turpin skilfully unveils. The brothers have set up a complex business arrangement that rips off The Last Nazi. They’ve reaped the rewards of their deception for decades. But the Last Nazi’s son, Ignacio, suspects something is up and investigates. He soon discovers Joe is looking for the same thing.
The CIA doesn’t want secrets revealed. Joe’s former employer does all it can to prevent him knowing the truth. The forces opposing Joe, Fiona and Jayne gather apace culminating in a nail-biting climax.
Joe has history with Fiona and Jayne; the unacknowledged imperceptible tension gives the novel and added layer of stress. Andrew Turpin has woven a sophisticated web of intrigue that will engross, entertain and enlighten.
August 23, 2017
“The Last Nazi” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Andrew Turpin. This is Mr. Turpin’s first novel.
I received an ARC of this novel from the author in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story begins in World War II Europe, but then fast forwards to today. The primary character is former CIA officer and war crimes investigator Joe Johnson.
Johnson hears of a train hidden by the Nazis during the last days of the war. He also discovers evidence of blackmail and a tie to an American campaigning for President. This puts him on the trail of a German SS officer now living in South America who is still being sought for war crimes.
Johnson’s investigation is not without danger and obstruction. The Nazis still are organized and are a threat to Johnson. He also finds that not all intelligence agencies are interested in the SS officer being brought to justice.
I very much enjoyed the 11 hours I spent reading this 482 page Mystery Thriller. I liked the character of Johnson as well as the two women who help him in his investigations and seem to lay the ground for future romantic entanglement. The cover art is well chosen, depicting an SS officer, but with an unknown face. I look forward to reading the next novel in this series. I give this novel a 4.5 (rounded up to a 5) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
I received an ARC of this novel from the author in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story begins in World War II Europe, but then fast forwards to today. The primary character is former CIA officer and war crimes investigator Joe Johnson.
Johnson hears of a train hidden by the Nazis during the last days of the war. He also discovers evidence of blackmail and a tie to an American campaigning for President. This puts him on the trail of a German SS officer now living in South America who is still being sought for war crimes.
Johnson’s investigation is not without danger and obstruction. The Nazis still are organized and are a threat to Johnson. He also finds that not all intelligence agencies are interested in the SS officer being brought to justice.
I very much enjoyed the 11 hours I spent reading this 482 page Mystery Thriller. I liked the character of Johnson as well as the two women who help him in his investigations and seem to lay the ground for future romantic entanglement. The cover art is well chosen, depicting an SS officer, but with an unknown face. I look forward to reading the next novel in this series. I give this novel a 4.5 (rounded up to a 5) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
August 27, 2017
The Last Nazi is quite an engaging novel. The basis is a mystery story with its roots in WW II centred around blackmail and murder. Add involvement by CIA and Mossad, some unsavoury family secrets and a few unsettled old scores on top of action in the USA. UK, Argentina and Poland, not to forget the dirty dealings around a presidential primary election.
All these ingredients have been skilfully blended in a free flowing narrative that will keep your interest all the way through. Strong dialogue, an interesting blend of characters, a lot of action and some rather unexpected ways of dealing with the past and you end up with quite an exciting cocktail.
A lot of research must have gone into the historical and geographical parts which gives it that authentic flavour. A great debut, well worth reading.
All these ingredients have been skilfully blended in a free flowing narrative that will keep your interest all the way through. Strong dialogue, an interesting blend of characters, a lot of action and some rather unexpected ways of dealing with the past and you end up with quite an exciting cocktail.
A lot of research must have gone into the historical and geographical parts which gives it that authentic flavour. A great debut, well worth reading.
August 22, 2017
This book broke my heart, made me sick to my stomach with the horrors inflicted, amazed me and shook my world. It is fiction but many of the details are true facts. There is incredible documentation references included in the back of the book. I have ready much about the atrocities of Hitler's Germany but none touched me the way this account did. The storyline is strong with great characters outside of the backstory of the time in Gross-Rosen concentration camp
I hope that everyone reads this book, with the thought that it may stop history from repeating itself. I am horrified that mankind ever allowed itself to sink to such brutal and unspeakably horrific actions
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
I hope that everyone reads this book, with the thought that it may stop history from repeating itself. I am horrified that mankind ever allowed itself to sink to such brutal and unspeakably horrific actions
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
February 18, 2019
I read this one from front to back pretty fast because I have been reading up a lot on the history of nazis.
The only other nazi fiction I read was the boys from brazil.
While researching this heinous crime I saw huge opportunities for excellent movies and books on the nazis.
The Nazi regime is dead and cold so I did think, would this book be any good or is just biting at ghosts.
It was good for a first novel. The theme was good and mostly believable, there were times when I thought um hmmm and......
Thinking back on it tho, its good. The characters were excellent and the general story line is cool.
I like the idea of Mossad being involved and I also liked the ethnic diversity.
I intend to read every single book in this series.
The only other nazi fiction I read was the boys from brazil.
While researching this heinous crime I saw huge opportunities for excellent movies and books on the nazis.
The Nazi regime is dead and cold so I did think, would this book be any good or is just biting at ghosts.
It was good for a first novel. The theme was good and mostly believable, there were times when I thought um hmmm and......
Thinking back on it tho, its good. The characters were excellent and the general story line is cool.
I like the idea of Mossad being involved and I also liked the ethnic diversity.
I intend to read every single book in this series.
October 2, 2017
An excellent read, filled with action intrigue, backstabbing, and a good deal of WWII history. This story garbs the reader from the start and won't let go until that final page which hints at future stories of Joe Johnson.
I received an advance reader copy of this book and voluntarily chose to write a review.
I received an advance reader copy of this book and voluntarily chose to write a review.
September 19, 2017
I really enjoyed this - a good tense thriller with a believable hero in Joe Johnson. It reminded me of Frederick Forsythe (that is a compliment!) and the pace and excitement kept me turning the pages. Great debut.
September 15, 2019
This has to be the worst edited book I have read. IT IS NOT WRITTEN IN AMERICAN ENGLISH. I appreciate Good British novels but we Americans don’t speak like this ever....speak soon 😄
Also, the knowledge of both UK and US Intelligence Services is appalling.
Also, the knowledge of both UK and US Intelligence Services is appalling.
May 7, 2018
An intriguing novel linking the horror of the Holocaust and Nazi Gold to a US presidential primary. Lots of twists and action. I enjoyed it.
January 21, 2023
It was a slow start but once I got into it I really enjoyed it.
April 4, 2022
If one is a fan of Frederick Forsyth, or enjoys his works, one may safely bet one may like this, even though it's a much simpler, paler version of the original's deep and wide research and complexity of plots one is used to, from ODESSA File and Day of the Jackal onwards. Not that earlier works, if any, were less - just that, these two were the first one recalls having come across.
What with the nazi chase, in fact, one is reminded more than once of The ODESSA File, and there's the parent angle too for good measure- except that, here there's more than one survivor, and a very questionable angle too, of Jews vs church, via forgiveness on one side (claiming virtue, for most people, and then insisting on justice for all victims), while other side is painted with tar, consorting with the devil that's the nazis.
Another difference is that, in The ODESSA File, the back story comes much sooner, securing the reader's sympathy for holocaust victims and more, while here that's taken care of via a prologue, and a substantial diary appears much later, although in early stages there's another memoir, both private.
***
The story begins with an incident in midst of holocaust involving a tunnel collapse where camp inmates were being used in Southern Poland to carry and stash heavy boxes, before a pair often brothers manage to escape from a train and hear others being shot. This is prologue, before the story opens in Washington DC to a fundraiser attended by a nephew and son of the escaped twins, his brother being the candidate. He's found stabbed to death in his hotel room, but nit before he's talked to an investigator and a journalist about the nazi connection of funds.
So far so good. But suddenly the author's antisemitism comes through, talking about the dead mother of the investigator who had been in the same camp as the twins.
"Helena had been eventually released when the Red Army arrived in April 1945, just after her twentieth birthday. Although originally a Jew, she later became a Christian ... "
"Although"??? Sounds like he's describing a blind person achieving dressing oneself! Reminds one obe Donelly in his work on Atlantis describing Chinese as having acquired racial characteristic faults of shapes of nose and eyes during migration!
Perhaps it's to assure that the protagonist is kosher, despite the story being about Jews persecution and murders by nazis, including in US in the new millennium? That it's not about opposite persecution by Jews for avenging the holocaust, beyond justice? Or even just reassuring an average reader in US that the author is one of them?
Reality is that most survivors managed to live only by never mentioning what they had suffered, although the family would know bare facts thereof, until they were old, with grown children and grandchildren, before some of them wrote their memoirs.
"Johnson had been shocked when he read it for the first time. He had never known it had existed until then, and although his mother used to talk a bit about the camps and tell the occasional story about how the Nazis treated the Jews back then, she never did so in graphic detail. He hadn’t read the manuscript since probably 2002."
And most, at that, are probably not published, but kept private by family, if found. Few have consented to publications, or other measures of going public such as organisations bringing people together, and that, reluctantly.
It's really not different from women being able to speak about domestic violence suffered by most.
***
" ... You had another lecture, right? What was this one about?”
"“It was about the controversy when the CIA employed a lot of ex-Nazis after World War II to spy for them,” Johnson said. “Many of the Nazis knew a lot about Russia, which were the new enemy then. Lots of them were given entry into the U.S. as a payback. They were given a safe haven here, no questions asked, a few thousand of them—mass murderers, torturers, sadists, you name it. My talk was partly about how the OSI was set up in 1979 inside the Department of Justice in Washington to track down those Nazis, who were scattered across the country.”"
***
"The cruelty of the SS camp commanders was indescribable, unfathomable. I could not work out how such depths of cold hatred and savagery could exist in a person. Any excuse to beat one of us, any reason conjured out of nowhere, any minor fabricated indiscretion—they would grab it, a horrible thin smile on their lips. Inflicting pain, agony, humiliation, and then eventually death, was their daily reason for living.
"For them it was the only way to be. To follow orders and to cause pain.
"Did they have a choice? Of course they did. And they chose the way of darkness always."
***
" ... Brenner stopped in front of me, about half a meter away.
"He squared his shoulders, his feet apart, and put his hands behind his back, holding his black leather riding crop whip, which he used to lash us with. His words to me were “You—you never look me in the eye, do you?” Then he repeated them, shouting at the top of his voice, screaming. He said it was disrespectful to avoid eye contact and that he was going to teach me some manners. Then he turned to one of the Jewish kapos, the Jews who had either volunteered or had been told to do certain jobs to help the guards, and told him to fetch the ox whip.
"I was shaking with fear because I had previously seen the first lieutenant whipping prisoners with it while they were held motionless on a whipping block.
"Now it was my turn. The guards called this torture the fünfundzwanzig, German for “twenty-five,” because it involved that number of strokes with the whip across the buttocks. I’ve never felt such pain, and even now, I can’t put into words how it felt.
"Then and now, I’ve no idea how I avoided fainting, but I think this was the only thing that kept me alive, because if I had lost consciousness while the first lieutenant was beating me, I’m certain I would have been shot. That’s what happened to others.
"Afterward the guards were instructed to leave me standing in the Appell yard, where the daily roll call of prisoners was taken, for a whole day in the sun without food or water, and that no one must speak to me, and I mustn’t sit or lie down.
"And that’s what happened. It was summer, and the sun shone from a cloudless sky for the whole day. I must have been very close to death. I had blood running down my legs from the whip, and I was horribly sunburned on my head and hands and feet, in utter agony.
"I was unconscious for quite some time toward the end. I must finally have passed out; I don’t know how long for.
"Afterward I developed some sort of infection from the whip wounds and even today bear those scars. The camp doctor came to look at me. He could do nothing, or wanted to do nothing."
And again, there's a thorn, a foreign seeming insertion.
"But I prayed to the Almighty while I was out in that Appell yard, and he spoke back to me and told me I would live. And I did, somehow. He also told me I was loved and had to forgive those SS commanders for what they had done, or I would go mad.
"And that was true. I had a sudden realization that inside me, I couldn’t choose my circumstances, but I could choose my response.
"That is how I survived the whipping and how I survived Wüstegiersdorf.
"Yet those who perpetrated these crimes, even if forgiven, must face justice."
This double twist is unnatural, typical of church in its protection of criminals from victims, on one hand, and of persecution of subjugated races in name of justice on the other.
Most memoirs speak of nightmares, inability to forget, and need yo get back to life. Having read well over a dozen, one can't recall a single one that speaks of forgiveness, much less of a double twist as author has the victim here for.
***
"He turned around to his computer. There were two new e-mails sitting in his inbox: one from the assistant school principal’s wife, which he ignored, and one from the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation, set up by the famous Nazi hunter of the same name. It was announcing the organization’s 2011 Annual Status Report on the Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, the latest update of a document first published in 2001.
"The report included a list of the most wanted former Nazis. The numbers on the list had dwindled sharply over recent years, due mainly to death from old age, with the odd successful prosecution to celebrate.
"Johnson scanned through it, tapping the desk with his fingers. Yes, the names were still there.
"Those bastards from Wüstegiersdorf had never been caught."
True of most of them!
***
The descriptions of incidents in career of Johnson, the protagonist, in his past as a CIA operative stationed in Pakistan and developing contacts in Afghanistan in 1988, seems to evoke Zero Dark Thirty as well as parts of Homeland. Perhaps that's because they're all based on real events and characters.
Interestingly, author goes into use of nazis by CIA, and possibly protection given to them, even from OSI.
***
Author mentions "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", the film. It's unusual respect paid to a fellow author, so one wonders if they're related.
***
There's an uncanny feeling, beginning soon past the prologue, somewhere around when Johnson and Fiona meet Nathaniel first, of being in The Neverending Story, of the terrifying wolf woken and being on the chase.
Perhaps it merely testifies to the eternal quality of The Neverending Story, rather than an unconscious effect on the author.
***
Not relevant to the plot, but brings much to mind -
" ... “The U.S. President Barack Obama flew into London’s Stansted Airport last night to be greeted by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.
"President Obama, who is traveling with his wife, Michelle, will hold an initial meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street this evening.
"It is only the third state visit to the U.K. by a U.S. President in the past 100 years.
"Obama, followed by a large U.S. press entourage . . . ”"
This was, of course, a few years before the last wedding in the family, with the substitute in tears as he escorted the bride to be given in marriage to his youngest.
*****
It's almost halfway before story returns to events leading to opening of prologue.
"All the commanders were terrified of Lutkemeyer’s boss, the top man, Captain Karl Beblo, who was a fearsome character with the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. Beblo was the local commandant of the Third Reich’s civil and military engineering group, the Organisation Todt.
"The Todt, together with the Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer, had decided that Książ Castle in Walbrzych (or Waldenburg, as the Germans called it) should be turned into a headquarters for Hitler.
"I and other Poles hated the way the Germans had many decades earlier taken over the whole Lower Silesia region, originally part of the Kingdom of Poland. By the time Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, they saw it as their own.
"Speer and his team planned to build a complex of tunnels under the beautiful old castle: a bolt-hole where the Führer could flee if the war went against Germany. A place beyond the range of British and American bombers.
"They also planned to build more tunnels under the hills on which the castle stood, as well as under the Owl Mountains, which ran for twenty-six kilometres southeast from Walbrzych.
"The idea was to use them as underground factories to produce sensitive and highly secret new weapons and other military technology.
"The code name for this scheme was Project Riese—German for “giant.”
"To build the tunnels, the Nazis brought in a small army of mining engineers.
"But the actual digging, the dangerous bit, was carried out by concentration camp prisoners like Daniel and me.
"Most of us were Jews, but there were also a few Slavs and other minorities. We were all kept at Gross-Rosen, the network of camps that included Wüstegiersdorf.
"The SS cut corners and had no regard for safety. Thousands of the prisoners died, both in the camps and while digging the tunnels. Concrete supports weren’t put in place, and tunnel roofs were often unstable. We all knew there were many fatal accidents, all involving Jews. Even the SS guards and commanders were worried, because they had to supervise us.
"Lutkemeyer said it was important the work that was to be done that day at the Sokolec tunnels be completed quickly, otherwise the Führer would be angry. This made me take notice.
"I heard Lutkemeyer say there was a special delivery of boxes coming, which had to be stowed in Sub-Tunnel A, running off Tunnel Three. That was bad news because although there was a narrow-gauge railway that ran up to the entrance to Tunnel Three, if anything needed to be transported farther, we had to carry it by hand. Tunnel Three was a disaster waiting to happen. They had built it into soft sandstone, and it wasn’t as stable as some of the other tunnels across the mountain range. The SS were so concerned, they had a couple of small escape tunnels built, one of which I worked on.
"There were six guards that day, which surprised me. Normally, there were just two or three. They loaded twenty-two of us onto a truck, then drove us to the railway station, herded us into two cattle trucks pulled by an old shunting engine, and then took us the thirteen kilometres down the valley to the village of Ludwikowice Klodzkie.
"Brenner, to his obvious distaste, had been forced to travel with us.
"From there, a smaller train took us on the narrow-gauge railway a couple of kilometres up to the tunnel complex in the hills near the village of Sokolec.
"A little later, at just before ten o’clock, another Nazi train, pulling five trucks loaded with wooden boxes, chugged up to the Sokolec tunnel entrance, accompanied by heavily armed SS guards.
"Our job was to unload the train and carry the heavy boxes far into the tunnels complex, where we had to stack them on pallets."
***
"His thesis, which he still had at home in Portland, included details of how, for most of the war, Hitler’s regime had bolstered its thin foreign-exchange reserves, vital to purchasing equipment, machinery, and engineering products, by plundering the gold reserves of the various countries it had marched into. In all, an estimated $600 million of gold at 1945 prices had been looted from the central banks in Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and others. Most of it was melted down and reformed by the Reichsbank into new one-kilogram gold bars.
"Johnson turned on his phone calculator app and punched in a few numbers. That was something like $30 billion at 2011 prices, he thought.
"He had also done research into how, in late 1944 and early 1945, when the Russians were advancing rapidly west and the Americans and British moving east, the crumbling Third Reich scrambled to hide the treasure it had plundered.
"Much of it was stored in disused mines. Some was dropped to the bottom of lakes.
"But now it seemed that from what Jacob had written, some of it was also hidden in the tunnels of the Riese complex."
And that's before mentioning France, looted majorly, or Jews, ditto.
***
" ... But when they heard nineteen shots, they knew Brenner had killed them all—something that was confirmed much later. After that, there was only one line left in the narrative, a couple of pages from the end of the notebook.
""I knew then he would have to pay the price, that there would have to be justice. "
"Johnson put the notebook down and rested in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
"A Nazi gold train."
***
"“That man saved our life and must have put his own at risk. After a while, we went over the Czech border and came to another few houses on the other side of the hills. We went to one of them, where a man took us into his attic. By that stage, we just couldn’t go any farther—Daniel especially. He was totally done in.
"“We were shocked to find two British guys there in the attic as well, both of them airmen. They were escaped prisoners of war, dressed in German clothing and with proper German ID documents. They told us they’d escaped from Stalag 344, a prisoner of war camp about a hundred kilometers northeast, and that they were planning to head south through Czechoslovakia and Germany to Switzerland. We waited a few days until we felt a little stronger, and the Poles found us some better clothing, money for the trains, and fake documents stating we were Belgian laborers. Then we just went with the two British. We followed them at a distance so if we got caught, they wouldn’t be pulled in as well.
"“We got to Singen, near the German-Swiss border, and then just walked about thirty kilometers, following the railway line to Schaffhausen, ducking through the woods and getting over the border near Ramsen.”
"From Switzerland, the twins had passed into southern France, where the French Resistance helped them pass through Toulouse and Perpignan, then over the Pyrenees and into Spain, where they parted company with the two British airmen.
"From there, Spain, which in practice remained neutral during the war, allowed them to cross into Portugal, another neutral country. They eventually got onto a ship from Lisbon to London in February 1945."
One would find it unbelievable, if one hadn't read accounts by so many survivors.
***
Another ODESSA moment with a difference -
"“I guess my mother is one reason I’m here,” Johnson said. “For a long time I was a Nazi hunter in the U.S., as you said. That was partly because of my mother’s experience in Wüstegiersdorf, which you both seem to have shared.
"“But there’s something else. In 1996, I was searching for an SS captain, Jan Van Stalheim, whom I tracked to Buenos Aires, where the trail went cold. He’d vanished. But I had a tip that he visited a jeweler in Buenos Aires a few times, someone I meant to go and check out but never did—a man called José Guzmann.”
"Johnson studied the brothers’ faces. “Does that name mean anything to you?”"
"Daniel gazed steadily at Johnson. “His real name wasn’t José Guzmann at all. It was actually a man called Erich Brenner—the former commander at Wüstegiersdorf.”"
***
"A life spent exiled under a false name with a false passport, in a country he hated, a wife who had left him at the same time as his only son, a business that was going down the tubes, no real friends, and the constant fear of discovery. Overhanging it all was the sense, not of guilt—there was none of that—but of failure that had spread through him like a vicious cancer, seemingly untreatable."
Fiction, there. Most nazis fared well.
What with the nazi chase, in fact, one is reminded more than once of The ODESSA File, and there's the parent angle too for good measure- except that, here there's more than one survivor, and a very questionable angle too, of Jews vs church, via forgiveness on one side (claiming virtue, for most people, and then insisting on justice for all victims), while other side is painted with tar, consorting with the devil that's the nazis.
Another difference is that, in The ODESSA File, the back story comes much sooner, securing the reader's sympathy for holocaust victims and more, while here that's taken care of via a prologue, and a substantial diary appears much later, although in early stages there's another memoir, both private.
***
The story begins with an incident in midst of holocaust involving a tunnel collapse where camp inmates were being used in Southern Poland to carry and stash heavy boxes, before a pair often brothers manage to escape from a train and hear others being shot. This is prologue, before the story opens in Washington DC to a fundraiser attended by a nephew and son of the escaped twins, his brother being the candidate. He's found stabbed to death in his hotel room, but nit before he's talked to an investigator and a journalist about the nazi connection of funds.
So far so good. But suddenly the author's antisemitism comes through, talking about the dead mother of the investigator who had been in the same camp as the twins.
"Helena had been eventually released when the Red Army arrived in April 1945, just after her twentieth birthday. Although originally a Jew, she later became a Christian ... "
"Although"??? Sounds like he's describing a blind person achieving dressing oneself! Reminds one obe Donelly in his work on Atlantis describing Chinese as having acquired racial characteristic faults of shapes of nose and eyes during migration!
Perhaps it's to assure that the protagonist is kosher, despite the story being about Jews persecution and murders by nazis, including in US in the new millennium? That it's not about opposite persecution by Jews for avenging the holocaust, beyond justice? Or even just reassuring an average reader in US that the author is one of them?
Reality is that most survivors managed to live only by never mentioning what they had suffered, although the family would know bare facts thereof, until they were old, with grown children and grandchildren, before some of them wrote their memoirs.
"Johnson had been shocked when he read it for the first time. He had never known it had existed until then, and although his mother used to talk a bit about the camps and tell the occasional story about how the Nazis treated the Jews back then, she never did so in graphic detail. He hadn’t read the manuscript since probably 2002."
And most, at that, are probably not published, but kept private by family, if found. Few have consented to publications, or other measures of going public such as organisations bringing people together, and that, reluctantly.
It's really not different from women being able to speak about domestic violence suffered by most.
***
" ... You had another lecture, right? What was this one about?”
"“It was about the controversy when the CIA employed a lot of ex-Nazis after World War II to spy for them,” Johnson said. “Many of the Nazis knew a lot about Russia, which were the new enemy then. Lots of them were given entry into the U.S. as a payback. They were given a safe haven here, no questions asked, a few thousand of them—mass murderers, torturers, sadists, you name it. My talk was partly about how the OSI was set up in 1979 inside the Department of Justice in Washington to track down those Nazis, who were scattered across the country.”"
***
"The cruelty of the SS camp commanders was indescribable, unfathomable. I could not work out how such depths of cold hatred and savagery could exist in a person. Any excuse to beat one of us, any reason conjured out of nowhere, any minor fabricated indiscretion—they would grab it, a horrible thin smile on their lips. Inflicting pain, agony, humiliation, and then eventually death, was their daily reason for living.
"For them it was the only way to be. To follow orders and to cause pain.
"Did they have a choice? Of course they did. And they chose the way of darkness always."
***
" ... Brenner stopped in front of me, about half a meter away.
"He squared his shoulders, his feet apart, and put his hands behind his back, holding his black leather riding crop whip, which he used to lash us with. His words to me were “You—you never look me in the eye, do you?” Then he repeated them, shouting at the top of his voice, screaming. He said it was disrespectful to avoid eye contact and that he was going to teach me some manners. Then he turned to one of the Jewish kapos, the Jews who had either volunteered or had been told to do certain jobs to help the guards, and told him to fetch the ox whip.
"I was shaking with fear because I had previously seen the first lieutenant whipping prisoners with it while they were held motionless on a whipping block.
"Now it was my turn. The guards called this torture the fünfundzwanzig, German for “twenty-five,” because it involved that number of strokes with the whip across the buttocks. I’ve never felt such pain, and even now, I can’t put into words how it felt.
"Then and now, I’ve no idea how I avoided fainting, but I think this was the only thing that kept me alive, because if I had lost consciousness while the first lieutenant was beating me, I’m certain I would have been shot. That’s what happened to others.
"Afterward the guards were instructed to leave me standing in the Appell yard, where the daily roll call of prisoners was taken, for a whole day in the sun without food or water, and that no one must speak to me, and I mustn’t sit or lie down.
"And that’s what happened. It was summer, and the sun shone from a cloudless sky for the whole day. I must have been very close to death. I had blood running down my legs from the whip, and I was horribly sunburned on my head and hands and feet, in utter agony.
"I was unconscious for quite some time toward the end. I must finally have passed out; I don’t know how long for.
"Afterward I developed some sort of infection from the whip wounds and even today bear those scars. The camp doctor came to look at me. He could do nothing, or wanted to do nothing."
And again, there's a thorn, a foreign seeming insertion.
"But I prayed to the Almighty while I was out in that Appell yard, and he spoke back to me and told me I would live. And I did, somehow. He also told me I was loved and had to forgive those SS commanders for what they had done, or I would go mad.
"And that was true. I had a sudden realization that inside me, I couldn’t choose my circumstances, but I could choose my response.
"That is how I survived the whipping and how I survived Wüstegiersdorf.
"Yet those who perpetrated these crimes, even if forgiven, must face justice."
This double twist is unnatural, typical of church in its protection of criminals from victims, on one hand, and of persecution of subjugated races in name of justice on the other.
Most memoirs speak of nightmares, inability to forget, and need yo get back to life. Having read well over a dozen, one can't recall a single one that speaks of forgiveness, much less of a double twist as author has the victim here for.
***
"He turned around to his computer. There were two new e-mails sitting in his inbox: one from the assistant school principal’s wife, which he ignored, and one from the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation, set up by the famous Nazi hunter of the same name. It was announcing the organization’s 2011 Annual Status Report on the Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, the latest update of a document first published in 2001.
"The report included a list of the most wanted former Nazis. The numbers on the list had dwindled sharply over recent years, due mainly to death from old age, with the odd successful prosecution to celebrate.
"Johnson scanned through it, tapping the desk with his fingers. Yes, the names were still there.
"Those bastards from Wüstegiersdorf had never been caught."
True of most of them!
***
The descriptions of incidents in career of Johnson, the protagonist, in his past as a CIA operative stationed in Pakistan and developing contacts in Afghanistan in 1988, seems to evoke Zero Dark Thirty as well as parts of Homeland. Perhaps that's because they're all based on real events and characters.
Interestingly, author goes into use of nazis by CIA, and possibly protection given to them, even from OSI.
***
Author mentions "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", the film. It's unusual respect paid to a fellow author, so one wonders if they're related.
***
There's an uncanny feeling, beginning soon past the prologue, somewhere around when Johnson and Fiona meet Nathaniel first, of being in The Neverending Story, of the terrifying wolf woken and being on the chase.
Perhaps it merely testifies to the eternal quality of The Neverending Story, rather than an unconscious effect on the author.
***
Not relevant to the plot, but brings much to mind -
" ... “The U.S. President Barack Obama flew into London’s Stansted Airport last night to be greeted by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.
"President Obama, who is traveling with his wife, Michelle, will hold an initial meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street this evening.
"It is only the third state visit to the U.K. by a U.S. President in the past 100 years.
"Obama, followed by a large U.S. press entourage . . . ”"
This was, of course, a few years before the last wedding in the family, with the substitute in tears as he escorted the bride to be given in marriage to his youngest.
*****
It's almost halfway before story returns to events leading to opening of prologue.
"All the commanders were terrified of Lutkemeyer’s boss, the top man, Captain Karl Beblo, who was a fearsome character with the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. Beblo was the local commandant of the Third Reich’s civil and military engineering group, the Organisation Todt.
"The Todt, together with the Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer, had decided that Książ Castle in Walbrzych (or Waldenburg, as the Germans called it) should be turned into a headquarters for Hitler.
"I and other Poles hated the way the Germans had many decades earlier taken over the whole Lower Silesia region, originally part of the Kingdom of Poland. By the time Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, they saw it as their own.
"Speer and his team planned to build a complex of tunnels under the beautiful old castle: a bolt-hole where the Führer could flee if the war went against Germany. A place beyond the range of British and American bombers.
"They also planned to build more tunnels under the hills on which the castle stood, as well as under the Owl Mountains, which ran for twenty-six kilometres southeast from Walbrzych.
"The idea was to use them as underground factories to produce sensitive and highly secret new weapons and other military technology.
"The code name for this scheme was Project Riese—German for “giant.”
"To build the tunnels, the Nazis brought in a small army of mining engineers.
"But the actual digging, the dangerous bit, was carried out by concentration camp prisoners like Daniel and me.
"Most of us were Jews, but there were also a few Slavs and other minorities. We were all kept at Gross-Rosen, the network of camps that included Wüstegiersdorf.
"The SS cut corners and had no regard for safety. Thousands of the prisoners died, both in the camps and while digging the tunnels. Concrete supports weren’t put in place, and tunnel roofs were often unstable. We all knew there were many fatal accidents, all involving Jews. Even the SS guards and commanders were worried, because they had to supervise us.
"Lutkemeyer said it was important the work that was to be done that day at the Sokolec tunnels be completed quickly, otherwise the Führer would be angry. This made me take notice.
"I heard Lutkemeyer say there was a special delivery of boxes coming, which had to be stowed in Sub-Tunnel A, running off Tunnel Three. That was bad news because although there was a narrow-gauge railway that ran up to the entrance to Tunnel Three, if anything needed to be transported farther, we had to carry it by hand. Tunnel Three was a disaster waiting to happen. They had built it into soft sandstone, and it wasn’t as stable as some of the other tunnels across the mountain range. The SS were so concerned, they had a couple of small escape tunnels built, one of which I worked on.
"There were six guards that day, which surprised me. Normally, there were just two or three. They loaded twenty-two of us onto a truck, then drove us to the railway station, herded us into two cattle trucks pulled by an old shunting engine, and then took us the thirteen kilometres down the valley to the village of Ludwikowice Klodzkie.
"Brenner, to his obvious distaste, had been forced to travel with us.
"From there, a smaller train took us on the narrow-gauge railway a couple of kilometres up to the tunnel complex in the hills near the village of Sokolec.
"A little later, at just before ten o’clock, another Nazi train, pulling five trucks loaded with wooden boxes, chugged up to the Sokolec tunnel entrance, accompanied by heavily armed SS guards.
"Our job was to unload the train and carry the heavy boxes far into the tunnels complex, where we had to stack them on pallets."
***
"His thesis, which he still had at home in Portland, included details of how, for most of the war, Hitler’s regime had bolstered its thin foreign-exchange reserves, vital to purchasing equipment, machinery, and engineering products, by plundering the gold reserves of the various countries it had marched into. In all, an estimated $600 million of gold at 1945 prices had been looted from the central banks in Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and others. Most of it was melted down and reformed by the Reichsbank into new one-kilogram gold bars.
"Johnson turned on his phone calculator app and punched in a few numbers. That was something like $30 billion at 2011 prices, he thought.
"He had also done research into how, in late 1944 and early 1945, when the Russians were advancing rapidly west and the Americans and British moving east, the crumbling Third Reich scrambled to hide the treasure it had plundered.
"Much of it was stored in disused mines. Some was dropped to the bottom of lakes.
"But now it seemed that from what Jacob had written, some of it was also hidden in the tunnels of the Riese complex."
And that's before mentioning France, looted majorly, or Jews, ditto.
***
" ... But when they heard nineteen shots, they knew Brenner had killed them all—something that was confirmed much later. After that, there was only one line left in the narrative, a couple of pages from the end of the notebook.
""I knew then he would have to pay the price, that there would have to be justice. "
"Johnson put the notebook down and rested in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
"A Nazi gold train."
***
"“That man saved our life and must have put his own at risk. After a while, we went over the Czech border and came to another few houses on the other side of the hills. We went to one of them, where a man took us into his attic. By that stage, we just couldn’t go any farther—Daniel especially. He was totally done in.
"“We were shocked to find two British guys there in the attic as well, both of them airmen. They were escaped prisoners of war, dressed in German clothing and with proper German ID documents. They told us they’d escaped from Stalag 344, a prisoner of war camp about a hundred kilometers northeast, and that they were planning to head south through Czechoslovakia and Germany to Switzerland. We waited a few days until we felt a little stronger, and the Poles found us some better clothing, money for the trains, and fake documents stating we were Belgian laborers. Then we just went with the two British. We followed them at a distance so if we got caught, they wouldn’t be pulled in as well.
"“We got to Singen, near the German-Swiss border, and then just walked about thirty kilometers, following the railway line to Schaffhausen, ducking through the woods and getting over the border near Ramsen.”
"From Switzerland, the twins had passed into southern France, where the French Resistance helped them pass through Toulouse and Perpignan, then over the Pyrenees and into Spain, where they parted company with the two British airmen.
"From there, Spain, which in practice remained neutral during the war, allowed them to cross into Portugal, another neutral country. They eventually got onto a ship from Lisbon to London in February 1945."
One would find it unbelievable, if one hadn't read accounts by so many survivors.
***
Another ODESSA moment with a difference -
"“I guess my mother is one reason I’m here,” Johnson said. “For a long time I was a Nazi hunter in the U.S., as you said. That was partly because of my mother’s experience in Wüstegiersdorf, which you both seem to have shared.
"“But there’s something else. In 1996, I was searching for an SS captain, Jan Van Stalheim, whom I tracked to Buenos Aires, where the trail went cold. He’d vanished. But I had a tip that he visited a jeweler in Buenos Aires a few times, someone I meant to go and check out but never did—a man called José Guzmann.”
"Johnson studied the brothers’ faces. “Does that name mean anything to you?”"
"Daniel gazed steadily at Johnson. “His real name wasn’t José Guzmann at all. It was actually a man called Erich Brenner—the former commander at Wüstegiersdorf.”"
***
"A life spent exiled under a false name with a false passport, in a country he hated, a wife who had left him at the same time as his only son, a business that was going down the tubes, no real friends, and the constant fear of discovery. Overhanging it all was the sense, not of guilt—there was none of that—but of failure that had spread through him like a vicious cancer, seemingly untreatable."
Fiction, there. Most nazis fared well.
April 8, 2021
it started out well, but then it slowed and bored..
February 13, 2018
Well Done!
Liked the feasible story line mixed with historical events and perfectly logical invented current events. Characters are well developed and believable. Good story!
Liked the feasible story line mixed with historical events and perfectly logical invented current events. Characters are well developed and believable. Good story!
January 25, 2018
Interesting Read
I enjoy historical fiction dealing with WWII. This is first novel I have read that deals with war crimes. The book is long and well researched. It was not a book to read through quickly. It is very detailed.
I enjoy historical fiction dealing with WWII. This is first novel I have read that deals with war crimes. The book is long and well researched. It was not a book to read through quickly. It is very detailed.
August 10, 2017
A surprisingly good story that ranges from WWII to the present day. Both early and later portions of the story take place in an area of Poland I am very familiar with, and the book does a good job providing a historically accurate description of the area and the part it played in the war. The plot driver is a treasure of Nazi gold hidden in tunnels during the last days of the war. Two brothers who escaped the concentration camp during the war use the gold to torment a evil Nazi in hiding in Argentina. The characters are very interesting, and interact in a variety of ways as Joe Johnson, a former CIA agent turned Nazi-hunter, tracks the aged war criminal despite efforts by two governments to protect the criminal. The Nazi's son. old friends, former lovers and enemies work with and against Joe Johnson as he tries to understand the issues and do the right thing. The writing is quite good and keeps the level of suspense high as threat after threat impacts Johnson and his team.
October 27, 2017
First book produced and it sure shouldn't be the last one.
The author sure didn't take it easy for his first book. He intertwined various plots during the book which came together beautifully at the end. His characters where nicely developed and hope to see more of Joe Johnson in his next book. Joe isn't the macho man that you see so often in books these days, but a guy that cares about his family and has the same kind of concerns that many people have of combining family life with a rather demanding job. You get a real feel about the person without it been boring or overpowering the story. The woman held their own. Self made woman who are human and make good and bad decisions.
I do hope that in a future book Joe's former CIA boss is help responsible for his past deeds.
Highly recommend reading the book.
The author sure didn't take it easy for his first book. He intertwined various plots during the book which came together beautifully at the end. His characters where nicely developed and hope to see more of Joe Johnson in his next book. Joe isn't the macho man that you see so often in books these days, but a guy that cares about his family and has the same kind of concerns that many people have of combining family life with a rather demanding job. You get a real feel about the person without it been boring or overpowering the story. The woman held their own. Self made woman who are human and make good and bad decisions.
I do hope that in a future book Joe's former CIA boss is help responsible for his past deeds.
Highly recommend reading the book.
May 22, 2021
TLDR: It starts with a bang, slows down a little in the middle, and ends with a ferocious bang. A delightful read for fans of thrillers, suspense, and war crimes.
I am a big fan of thrillers with WW2 as a background or related to WW2 in the current timeline. While on a holiday, my eyes fell on this book (wonderful work on the cover by the author, extremely captivating). The prologue was eye-catching and suspenseful. However, holiday ended and I couldn't place an order in my country due to lockdown restrictions. Somehow, I ended up buying this book and I haven't regretted a bit. The story is well backed by historical facts and author has taken liberty in certain instances, but apart from that, it will keep you enticed and excited.
I am a big fan of thrillers with WW2 as a background or related to WW2 in the current timeline. While on a holiday, my eyes fell on this book (wonderful work on the cover by the author, extremely captivating). The prologue was eye-catching and suspenseful. However, holiday ended and I couldn't place an order in my country due to lockdown restrictions. Somehow, I ended up buying this book and I haven't regretted a bit. The story is well backed by historical facts and author has taken liberty in certain instances, but apart from that, it will keep you enticed and excited.
September 12, 2017
This is definitely a book worth reading. It has everything to keep the readers interest. A longer story that than I normally read but I was never bored. Full of mystery , suspense and intrigue. Ex CIA member Joe Johnson gets the chance of a lifetime to bring the Nazi commandant at the concentration camp where his mother suffered such savage treatment to justice. His journey has lots of twists and turns and you get a clear picture of the conditions that prisoners suffered during the war.
I don't want to give any plot away . Its a book I wouldn't have missed for the world and I will most definitely be reading the next book. Brilliant.
I don't want to give any plot away . Its a book I wouldn't have missed for the world and I will most definitely be reading the next book. Brilliant.
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