World War II continues to give us fodder for books. This one uses some real events, such as Rudolf Hess parachuting into Scotland in 1941 and the decoding of the German's Enigma machine, and weaves a story around them. I found it entertaining but not very believable.

In the early years of WWII the US was not involved and American nationals were allowed into Germany. In addition to many American journalists one aviator, Ted Campbell, resided in Germany. His father had started an airplane engine manufacturing company there before the war and when he died Ted took over managing it. Ted had a British sweetheart, Kate, whose father had been in the government in some capacity that was never quite clear to Ted. On his way back to Germany Kate's father prevailed upon Ted to deliver a book to an old friend in Lisbon. Unbeknownst to Ted that book was a coded message having to do with a secret network of spies. One member of the network was Rudolf Hess, the third most important person in the German government. Later Ted became even more involved with the network and came to the attention of a sociopathic German spy hunter. You know that is not a good thing.

I thought the plot was pretty far-fetched but I suppose no more so than many action films found on screens everywhere. In fact, I'm surprised someone hasn't done a film treatment of it. ( )