cover image White Gamma

White Gamma

David Chacko. St. Martin's Press, $0 (278pp) ISBN 978-0-312-02317-1

This intricate and timely thriller moves National Security Agency operative Stephen Warfield from the pages of The Black Chamber to South America where he hopes to track down Nazi war criminal Heinrich Muller. Now known as Erich Molenaur, Muller was a real-life Gestapo officer, and Chacko has fictionalized his file to create a suspenseful tale. On arrival in Medellin, Colombia, Warfield discovers a link between Muller and a cocaine cartel headed by wealthy Hector Aleria, suspected conduit for contra funding. Violence, corruption and deceit stymie Warfield in his quest to find the wily German, and his probe unearths startling information about drug smuggling from below the equator to North America. Chacko's complicated plot is sometimes slow-moving and wordy, but it is an enlightening narrative well worth the reader's effort. (Oct.)