The Barnes & Noble Review
Put Nazis in a thriller and you've got me almost every time. Spandau Phoenix is one of my favorites to star those swastika-wearing scumbags. The fascinating thing about this book, it focuses on a real-life occurrence -- one of WWII's greatest mysteries in fact. Why did Rudolf Hess, Hitler's right-hand man, embark on a daring solo flight to England? Intense excitement laced with historical intrigue at its best.

--Andrew LeCount

Stock characters and melodramatic plotting mar this first novel, which posits a Rudolf Hess impostor imprisoned in Spandau while the real Nazi remains free, working from a secret South African stronghold to keep Hitler's legacy alive. In 1987, soon after the fake Hess dies in his jail cell, 27-year-old German police sergeant Hans Apfel accidentally discovers a sheaf of yellow documents amid the rubble of the recently demolished Spandau prison. Hans takes the mysterious papers to his wife Ilse who, with her father, a history professor, translates the Spandau Papers, as they come to be known, from their original Latin. What they uncover is a plot begun in 1941 involving Hitler, Hess, his SS-trained double and Nazi sympathizers in the House of Parliament, to kill Churchill and replace him with the appeasing Duke of Windsor. When word of the existence of the papers--which may indicate a present-day neo-Nazi/South African plan to annihilate Israel--gets out, KGB agents, the East German secret police and a rogue Mossad agent race to locate them. Though clearly written, with some entertaining speculation, this effort is overwhelmed by cliches. Author tour. (May)

Rudolph Hess--Spandau prisoner number 7--dies in 1987. When a secret ``Hess diary'' is found at Spandau by a West German policeman, the various police and intelligence agencies stationed in Berlin become even more interested in Hess's 1941 flight to England. Did Hess have highly placed contacts there? Was he alone? Was his well-trained double captured instead? The chain reaction from the diary's discovery explodes around West Germany, England, and South Africa, uncovering secret alliances and double agents. This first novel, which attempts to fill in history's blanks and to tie the past with the present, has action, characters, and violence to spare. But the body count is high, even for this genre, and the novel loses its impact long before the end of the drawn-out plot. An optional purchase for large popular fiction collections.-- V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney

A terrific thriller in the great tradition of Jack Higgins and Len Deighton...The characters are fascinating, the narrative is skilled, and the dialogue rings true.”—Nelson DeMille 

“Compelling and convincing...speculating on one of history’s most intriguing puzzles…and possibilities.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune
 
“Masterful action and suspense...a sizzling hot read.”—Stephen Coonts
 
“A scorching read...An irresistible plot.”—John Grisham

“Filled with action, interesting characters, and a compelling plot, Spandau Phoenix, is a fascinating mixture of political critique and techno-thriller.”—New York Daily News