The Fourth Rising

Hill injects suspense and plausibility into a familiar plot—the existence of a covert movement aimed at restoring the Nazi Reich—in his third thriller featuring freelance journalist Peter Brandt (after 2016’s The Last Refuge). One day in 1997, Brandt gets a visit to his San Diego, Calif., home from his former lover, Joanne Rice, who left him four years earlier to marry wealthy Frank Crane. Two weeks earlier Frank was tortured and killed by someone who poured gasoline on Frank’s corpse and set it on fire. Joanne is the prime suspect, and Brandt, who still has feelings for her, agrees to try to prove her innocence. The mystery deepens after they find that Crane, a racist, possessed a bar of gold that was once part of a stash the Nazis sent to Mexico by U-boat to help resurrect the Reich after its defeat in WWII. Brandt investigates, aided by Jonathan Glasgow, an expert on the rise of fascism and links between European totalitarian regimes and American industrialists. Hill nicely balances action and exposition. Readers new to this author will want to check out his other books. (Self-published)