BOOK REVIEW: Spandau Phoenix

History, especially the strategies involved in war, falls outside my area of expertise. As a result, I depend on my son-in-law and Wikipedia to help me understand the times that an author deviates from fact into fiction. SPANDAU PHOENIX by Greg Isles had me asking quite a few questions.

In West Berlin in 1987, Spandau Prison is being torn down. Former Allies, France, Great Britain, the United States, and Russia have rotated guarding the prison on a monthly bases. Now the last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, is dead and representatives from each country, including East and West Germany, are monitoring the destruction of the building.

In the debris, a young German policeman finds what appears to be a diary written by the prisoner known as Rudolf Hess. These papers not only maintain that the prisoner had not been Hess, but his double and that some of the top men in Great Britain had been Nazi sympathizers and actively planned to kill Winston Churchill.

Great Britain is desperate to get the papers, but so are certain people in West Germany, Russia, and the United States. If the papers are true, Israel wants the real Rudolf Hess to pay for his war crimes. What follows is a true espionage novel. Spies, blackmailers, double crossers, and sadistic evil doers are on every page. The mixture of historical fact and the author’s imagination make this a fascinating read. 

 

Greg Isles is one of my favorite authors and you have to forgive me if his books keep appearing on this blog. SPANDAU PHOENIX was his first novel and he admits that he wrote it to make a name for himself as an author as well as to prove that he could make a living writing. 

 

This was not my favorite book of his. It gets a little wordy at times, mainly because characters have to explain what has and is happening. The story goes between the early war years and 1987 and I felt that some of these could have been eliminated. The chapters involving Hitler and Reinhard Heydrich were longer than needed. 

SPANDAU PHOENIX was not only Iles’ first novel but the first of his books to make the New York Times best seller list. His books are never “formula” books and he has said that he would never write a series. Breaking his own rule he is currently working on a trilogy while he recuperates from a near fatal automobile accident. I am waiting.