Tangled Web UK Review March 2009
Hour of the Cat by
Peter Quinn
pbk out August 08
(Duckworth)
at £7.99
This is an unusual book and hardly a crime novel in the accepted sense, but very interesting and historically informative. Much of the book concerns Admiral Canaris, head of German Military Intelligence before and during the Second World War, but the rest is American-based, concerning a private eye, Fintan Dunne.
Canaris, a reluctant Nazi, trod a very fine line between loyalty to the German war effort and covert attempts to get rid of Adolf Hitler, a dangerous game with which he was to pay with his life.
The core of the story concerns eugenics, the cleansing for racial purity in which both the USA and Britain had adherents. The Nazis were obsessed with trying to get a pure Aryan stock, a futile aim, but one which caused Canaris to plot against his own country.
It is a long book with a complex plot which is heavily laced with fact. All the action takes place in the years immediately before the war, apart from an epilogue in 1945. American diplomacy, British secret service and ruthless German efficiency all contribute to a chilling four-hundred pages.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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