This novel of war, spies, holocaust survivors and ultimately, vengeance engages the reader in a maelstrom of cruelty, deceit and retribution. The cast of characters are often at odds with one another even though their aims are similar. The KGB agent who wants the secrets of a Nazi doctor who performed unspeakable experiments on prison camp detainees, the survivors of those experiments who now want justice to be delivered to him and the vile medico himself who has become a drug lord with a fiefdom in South America from which he dispenses death for profit dance a deadly pavane. Caroming from past to present by chapters, the plot unfolds as, on one hand, the German initiative of the 1940s to rule the world delves into darker and darker means while, in 1982, agents of both Russia and Israel hunt for the perpetrator of the worst of these crimes. At the center of it all, as would a spider, the researcher who is seeking to produce the “super soldier” in response to the failing Nazi campaign pulls the strings of evil without compunction. His casual cruelty is stunning. In both cases, the Israelis and the Russians have conflicting prerogatives; one, an agent seeking to fulfill a mission to allow her to progress within her spy agency, and one who is skirting the permission structure of the Mossad and other clandestine groups. The tension is occasionally suspended for fraternization of a type that could threaten both parties.

Written crisply and with a myriad of historical and geographical references adding to the verisimilitude, the story progresses quickly, leaving the reader no time to become complacent with the pace or plot. The author has clearly done the research necessary to bring truth to this fictional account which perhaps conflates several actual occurrences but is nonetheless worthy of attention by either fiction reader or historian. It can be readily recommended to either type of literary consumer with confidence.