The Zodiac Deception

Kriss makes the implausible plausible in his debut, the entertaining first in a duology set during WWII. In 1942, Wild Bill Donovan, the head of the O.S.S., recruits con man David Walker, a protégé of both Harry Houdini and Conan Doyle, to go to Berlin and persuade Heinrich Himmler to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Donovan wants Walker to pose as a German astrologer and predict important German victories that will win the trust of Himmler, a firm believer in the occult. While the outcome of this archetypal mission impossible is never in doubt, Kriss sweeps readers along with complex action sequences and an impressive array of tangential challenges. In one detour, Walker must descend into the Paris sewer system to try to rescue his love-interest, Maxine Elise, ostensibly a maker of Nazi propaganda films, whom members of the French underground are holding hostage. Crisp prose and a well-structured storyline bode well for the sequel. Agent: June Clark, FinePrint Literary Management. (May)