It is the summer of 1945. The war in Europe has ended and Professor Tom Wilde of Cambridge University is looking forward to his first term of teaching in what seems like years. But for spies like him, the war never ends. His friend Philip Eaton persuades him to undertake one last mission. Is Hitler really dead, and if not, where is he?
Eaton takes him round the various survivors of the Berlin Bunker who are now in England. Then it's off to the American sector of Berlin where Wilde is teamed with Mozes Heck, a Dutch Jew, raised in Germany, now a lietenant in the British Army. All of Heck's family died in the Holocaust. Thus Heck is on something of a crusade.
The fluctuating relationship between the two adopted Brits, the American professor and the Dutch avenger, is what gives the novel its tension. The trail eventually leads them to the Tyrol where the fallen Fuhrer may be hiding and where a second Fuhrer is definitely on the rise. The eventual showdown is well done and Clements leaves us with sufficient untied ends to anticipate the next in the series.
A niche subgenre of Oxbridge spies and Nazis has emerged over the last decades and Rory Clements was one of the first. He remains one of the best and I always enjoy his Wilde series. You can start reading them at any point - I certainly did.
