En un hospital de Londres asesinan a un anciano superviviente de los campos de concentración y, como macabro trofeo, le amputan el brazo izquierdo. Al otro lado del Atlántico, un grupo armado entra en el Museo Criptológico Nacional y se lleva una máquina Enigma de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Mientras, en Praga, sustraen de una sinagoga un cuadro en apariencia sin valor alguno. Tres ciudades. Tres robos. ¿Cuál es la conexión entre ellos?

Using the real Gold Train story, James Twining's story advances the idea that a portion of the Gold Train was originally removed and hidden in a spot other than the tunnel in Austria. His hero, Tom Kirk solves several puzzles to find the portion and his search takes him from Europe to the US, to Russia and finally to a small town in Germany. ( )

a pretty decent yarn. fast paced and a good mystery. i thought there were a few too many characters (the story switches between different character's pov throughout) but mostly a fun book. a good beach read. ( )

Nazis. Secrets. Art theft. Hidden Treasures. Thrilling adventure. Does that count as a review? If you haven't read this novel a hundred times, you must not read a lot of thrillers.

The Black Sun is your typical thriller novel, rife with the usual cliches and stereotypes. As Tom Kirk, a former art thief, goes on a little treasure hunt to find buried Nazi treasure, he predictably stumbles on some of the most absurdly obscure clues that always lead him in the right direction. He is accompanied by a cast of characters equally stereotypical. Americans are fat. Russians drink and smoke a lot. When women are introduced to the story they are described by what clothes they are wearing. If the characters were any flatter I could use them as a bookmark (which would never find their way into another James Twining thriller.) I think the only cliche not found in The Black Sun is the lack of a character with a missing hand or leg or an eye-patch or something. OH WAIT! There is one of those...well, shoot.

The novel starts off slow (like many thrillers) as the author feebly attempts to introduce his characters and story, but it does pick up about a third of the way through. After the author gets the ball rolling, he does do a great job with his action scenes. There is plenty of heart-pounding moments that can get the blood flowing. As the characters begin stumbling upon there ridiculously unlikely clues I can't deny the author did have me gripping my novel a little tighter, eagerly anticipating what would happen next. In that regard, The Black Sun does it's job well, creating suspense and tension with a story that will have you devouring pages to uncover what kind of crazy treasure the Nazis could have hidden, as the characters dodge bullets and participate in car chases and whatnot. It's prone to cause lots of eye-rolling, but it can suck you in it you don't watch your step!

There is also some historical truth and fascinating information about the Hungarian Gold Train to be found here, so it's not all for naught. This does help the over-the-top story to become a bit more conceivable, but it only helps so much. Plus in order to get to this you have to suffer through 400 pages of Twining bland writing, and I can't really say it's worth it. While the novel wasn't a complete waste of time and I didn't necessarily dislike it, it's not one I would recommend too highly. Unless, of course, you are a huge Dan Brown fan...then maybe you should go out and buy this immediately.

Average, 3 stars. ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Okay, I admit it! I'm a sucker for Hidden Secret Nazi Gold Action Adventure stories! What can I tell ya, man -- I like millions of other Americans can't get enough of them crazy fascist secret-society obsessives, and all their supposed billions of hidden money and art and treasure all over the world at the end of World War II, lots of which is supposedly still hidden and un-recovered. And thus do we get to British author James Twining's latest adventure, The Black Sun, part of the so-called "Tom Kirk" series, concerning a former brilliant art thief and his old partner who are both now working on the other side of the law as private investigators.

Like many throwaway genre novels these days, Twining takes on several fascinating real-life stories and legends from the period, to craft a rather silly potboiler in the style of The Da Vinci Code (of freaking course), full of rather on-the-nose clues scattered throughout famous real locations all across Europe, causing a team of good-looking and rich nerds to traipse all across the Continent, one step ahead of the law and while even having supermodel Russian mobsters fall in love with them along the way. Skoal! The Black Sun is a genre novel through and through, enough to make a non-fan of the genre howl with unintentional laughter while skimming it; for fans of the genre, though, it contains enough secret Gestapo cult societies and buried truckloads of Jewish gold to satisfy even the most hardcore Indiana Jones fan. Good for the airport or beach; take caution in other contexts.

Out of 10: 6.8, or 9.0 for fans of Hidden Secret Nazi Gold Action Adventure stories ( )