Black Cross (A World War II Thriller) by Greg Iles. Berkley Books. 656 pages.
I have a tendency to pick up books and put them on my Kindle reader with the intention of reading them–someday. This is one of those books. I’m not sure when I bought it, but I came across it just a week or two ago, and since I was in the mood for some historical fiction, I started reading. And I am glad I did.
Here’s the Amazon summary:
It is January 1944—and as Allied troops prepare for D-Day, Nazi scientists develop a toxic nerve gas that will repel and wipe out any invasion force. To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects. Their only objective: destroy all traces of the gas and the men who created it—no matter how many lives may be lost…including their own.
Greg Iles is a very good writer. In fact, I don’t think I can find anything wrong that he did, which is odd for me, who usually finds something wrong to pick out of any book. At first, I thought, yeah, they didn’t have chemical weapons in the Second World War, but wait…that’s the whole point of this book. It’s like saying, they didn’t bomb New York, and this is why….
The characters are believable and people you want to care about. The story is exciting. The bad guys have their sympathetic moments. And the best part of the story is: I never knew how it was going to end until the end. No cliches. No pat answers. Just good, old-fashioned storytelling.
Five out of five stars. Go get it.
The Great Adventure 