cover image Operation Raven

Operation Raven

Stuart White. Beaufort Books, $16.95 (302pp) ISBN 978-0-8253-0348-7

White's (Death Game World War II what-if thriller is a pip: fast, complicated and suspenseful. In early 1940 Heydrich secretly plans an SS attack on the British Royal Family during which Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret will be kidnapped. Abwehr chief Canaris uncovers the plot and Hitler vetoes it. But fanatical SD agent Uwe Eilders, already in England, decides to kill the princesses on his own. Hitler secretly phones Churchill and offers to send Eilders's old enemy Ulrich von der Osten to catch the renegade. Von der Osten is teamed with Scotland Yard Supt. Harry Jones, and together they follow a trail of murders to a chilling climax inside Buckingham Palace. The book is studded with many real-life characters and with rather a lot of gore. Eilders, master of disguise and, usually, of the English language, is clever, resourceful and quite sadistic. He uses and kills a variety of Londoners as he stalks the Royals. Jones and von der Osten are more plodding and less lucky as they struggle to get on with their manhunt and with each other. Almost everybody (except the princesses, of course) meets a bleak end in this riveting page-turner. (August 1)