The Enigma Affair

This rollicking if at times overstuffed thriller from Lovett (Escaping Dreamland) opens with a bullet whizzing past the ear of librarian Patton Harcourt, an ex-military intelligence officer, at her house in Alta Vista, N.C. She’s soon joined by a man who calls himself Nemo and says he has just dispatched the assassin who took a shot at her. A coded message from a WWII Enigma machine that the pair find in a book lent to Patton by an old friend prompts them to fly to Britain, where Ruthie Drinkwater, an Enigma expert and old flame of Patton’s, helps them decode the message, which reveals that Heinrich Himmler believed his alchemy project to have been successful. They also learn that a small group of white supremacists, led by a woman whose grandfather was Himmler’s right-hand man, is after them. Patton, Nemo, and their cohorts race to prevent neo-Nazis from acquiring untold riches in what Nemo calls “the last battle of World War II.” Despite extensive backstories, the characters come off as somewhat flat, but that may not matter to readers as the pages fly by. This prose mash-up of National Treasure and Indiana Jones is fun escapist fare. Agent: Anna Worrall, Gernert Co. (Sept.)