Margins
1986
First Published
4.13
Average Rating
404
Number of Pages

"Belongs in the same company as The Day of the Jackal . . . Brutal, brisk, and believable ... The finale sings." — New York Daily News. A strategy born of desperation: an assassination to end the war. Only one event can turn the tide. Hitler believes that the death of one man—Franklin Delano Roosevelt—will save Nazi Germany. From a prisoner of war camp near Fort Lewis, Washington, where 50,000 German soldiers are interned, Wehrmacht Captain Kurt Monck—a man of frightening resources with ruthless intelligence whose devious determination is sparked by Berlin’s orders via secret channels to escape the camp and head east. Monck’s trail is picked up by U.S. Secret Service agent John Wren, who hunts Monck as the German nears Franklin Roosevelt’s armored train en route to the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Monck’s only aid comes from his reluctant accomplice Margaret Bayerlein, a widow who provokes a haunting triangular relationship. Pursuit evokes the American home front during the war, as well as historic figures such as J. Edgar Hoover and President Roosevelt. The manhunt crosses the country, and Monck, Wren, and Roosevelt finally meet in an electrifying conclusion. Heart-pounding suspense for readers who love the taut thrillers of Jeffrey Deaver and Frederick Forsyth. “I simply could not put it down.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Avg Rating
4.13
Number of Ratings
181
5 STARS
41%
4 STARS
34%
3 STARS
21%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads

Author

James Stewart Thayer
Author · 15 books
James Thayer is the son of a wheat farmer, and he was raised in Spokane and the farm country in eastern Washington. He graduated from Washington State University and the University of Chicago Law School, and now teaches novel writing at the University of Washington extension school where in 2015 he received the Excellence in Teaching Award in the Arts, Writing and Humanities. The New York Times Book Review says his "writing is smooth and clear. Deceptively simple, it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm that only confident stylists achieve.” His The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel is a leading manual for fiction writers. Thayer is a member of the Washington State Bar Association and the International Thriller Writers. He and his family live in Seattle.
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