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BOOKS

Book review: Tom Wilde returns for intriguing WWII thriller

Lee Scott
For the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union USA TODAY NETWORK
"A Prince and a Spy" by Rory Clements

"A Prince and a Spy"

Author: Rory Clements

Pegasus Crime, 470 pages, $26.95

"A Prince and a Spy" features Cambridge history professor and spy Tom Wilde in his fifth World War II-era adventure from award-winning British historical thriller writer Rory Clements.

As with his earlier Wilde stories, Clements weaves this satisfying tale around actual events. At the behest of President Franklin Roosevelt, Wilde, an American OSS agent, begins to investigate a mysterious plane crash in Scotland that killed Prince George, brother to the English King and an FDR friend. He soon uncovers that the prince was returning from a meeting discussing peace with his cousin, Prince Philipp von Hesse, a Nazi and close friend of Hitler, and that the crash was not an accident.

Ignoring British secret service helpers, Wilde’s poking around exposes the internal politics of English society — despite the fighting and bombing, not all were anti-German. And he is also soon on the trail of exposing the systematic mass murdering of millions of Jews and others in what the Nazi’s called “The Final Solution.” A leader in this effort, Nazi Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller, plays a big part in the storyline, as well as Winston Churchill‘s reaction when Wilde delivers a report of his discoveries to him and asks that more should be done to stop the exterminations.

“Churchill’s face took on its gravest attitude, the jowls dropped, even the cigar to sag. Wilde was shocked to see tears in the man’s eyes.

“I have spoken to your president … and we have agreed that for us to bring this to the fore while we are in a position to do precisely nothing would leave us looking desperately weak, and would play right into Hitler’s hands.”

Old and new fans will be heartened that Clements ends with the notice that a new Wilde adventure is on the way. Looking forward to it.

Lee Scott lives in Avondale.