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Summary
Summary
Never have the stakes been higher than in his new novel. In the waning days of World War II, Hitler gave his diary to a young aide for safekeeping. Now it's threatening to resurface, with explosive contents: the details of a meeting between emissaries of Hitler and Roosevelt to reach an armistice and turn their collective efforts against the Soviet Union. The American representative: a close relative of none other than the current President, Jake Cazalet. Powerful enemies of Cazalet will do anything to get their hands on that diary-and it is up to White House operative Blake Johnson, together with his colleague in British intelligence, Sean Dillon, to make sure they don't. . . . Filled with hairpin twists and high-tension action, with characters as dark and surprising as any he has created, this is Higgins working at the peak of his powers.
Author Notes
Jack Higgins is a writer and educator, born in Newcastle, England on July 17, 1929. The name is the pseudonym of Harry Patterson. He also wrote under the names of Martin Fallon, James Graham, and Hugh Marlowe during his early writing career. He attended Leeds Training College and eventually graduated from the University of London in 1962 with a B.S. degree in Sociology.
Higgins held a series of jobs, including a stint as a non-commissioned officer in the Royal House of Guards serving on the German border during the Cold War. He taught at Leeds College of Commerce and James Graham College. He has written more than 60 books including The Eagle Has Landed, Touch the Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown, and Eye of the Storm. Higgins is also the author of the Sean Dillon series. His novels have since sold over 250 million copies and been translated into fifty-five languages.
His title's The Death Trade and Rain on the Dead made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Humdrum company would be a more accurate title. This sequel to Higgins's last, ripsnorting yarn, Midnight Runner, is mostly a by-the-numbers effort, though the numbers do speed by. The novel, the author's 35th, begins promisingly, playing to Higgins's greatest strength, WWII action. Young Baron Max von Berger, entrusted by Hitler during the last days of the Third Reich with his diary as well as the key to a vast fortune in Swiss banks, makes a daring and exciting escape from the F?hrerbunker. But once the narrative leaps toward the present, it begins to flag, with a second setup (including a nifty Saddam cameo) explaining why and how the baron inherits the wealth and power of the Rashid family, the Arab oil kingpins destroyed by Higgins's customary antihero, Sean Dillon, in the last book. Problematic is Higgins's use of von Berger and his thuggish son as villains here; they lack the evil charisma of the Rashids. To avenge the death of the Rashids, von Berger targets Dillon and his master, British black ops commander Gen. Charles Ferguson, who fights back with the help of the usual crew of "hard" men, including computer whiz Major Roper, White House black ops chief Blake Johnson, London tough guys Harry and Billy Salter, et al. Matters pick up a bit when von Berger's son kidnaps General Ferguson to Germany, but Dillon's rescue attempt whips by much too quickly, as if Higgins were hurrying to finish this book and get on to number 36. The author's fans will find enough gnarly action and sentiment here to make them anticipate his next, but this entry is sub par and the series as a whole could use a kick in the spine. (July 7) Forecast: Higgins always hits the lists, and this one will, too, though if his next isn't up to snuff he may find his numbers fading ? la Stephen King and John Grisham. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The Higgins thriller-engine revs up for its 32nd, with Hitler's "secret diary" the McGuffin. Berlin, April 30, 1945, and that is one bleak and blasted bunker in which SturmbahnfÜhrer Max von Berger makes a command appearance. A diminished Adolph Hitler, his fate sealed, has a final mission for the decorated young officer: to be keeper of the "holy book," his diary, to guard it closely until the day arrives when it can be used "to advance our cause." Flash forward to the present. Fortune has smiled on Baron von Berger, propelling him into the loftiest echelon of high-rolling entrepreneurs (munitions, oil) and yet, at the core, he remains as he always was: just a simple soldier for whom the laws of loyalty are immutable. Loyalty to his cherished FÜhrer, of course, but also to the beautiful Kate Rashid, late the half-British, half-Arab countess of Loch Dhue. It was British superagent Sean Dillon, series hero (Midnight Runner, 2002, etc.), who helped render the lovely but lethal Lady Kate deceased, an act of self-preservation if ever there was one. To von Berger, however, there's no such thing as an extenuating circumstance with loyalty the issue. He'd been half in love with the seductive (and willfully wicked) chairperson of multinational Rashid Investments--partnered her in a variety of clandestine ventures--but over and above this he credited her with once saving his life, of having wrested him from the clutches of some murderous Iraqi thugs. In behalf of Lady Kate, then, von Berger commits himself to "a Jihad," with Dillon and his ever on-call irregulars the announced target. At this point, Hitler's diary (and the revelations therein) becomes what everyone wants and is ready to kill for, setting the stage for the obligatory Higgins bloodbath. "It's like a bad novel, the whole thing," someone says, admittedly in another context. The Higgins thriller-engine sputters. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Higgins' classic novel of World War II espionage, The Eagle Has Landed (1975), was the thriller that brought him fame--and probably fortune. Bad Company, his thirty-fifth novel, also deals with WWII. As the war is drawing to a close in 1945, Hitler gives his diary to an aide for safekeeping. The diary contains an account of a meeting between representatives of Hitler and President Roosevelt at which they discussed ways to negotiate a peace treaty and then to attack Russia. The aide, Max von Berger, is now (in 2003) a billionaire industrialist and a silent partner with an international crime family. Seeking revenge for a killing, Berger vows to reveal the diary's secret that would destroy the current U.S. president. It's up to an American and a British agent to get the diary before it falls into the hands of the president's enemies. Like other Higgins' novels, the locales in this one are worldwide and include London, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, the U.S., and Iraq. (Yes, Saddam Hussein is one of the many characters.) Both the good guys and bad guys talk tough and smoke and drink a lot--Bushmills Irish whiskey, champagne, and schnapps are among their favorites. By a master of espionage novels, and certain to be requested at the circulation desk. --George Cohen