A Game of Lies-Rebecca Cantrell

A Game of Lies
Rebecca Cantrell
Forge, Jul 5 2011, $24.99
ISBN: 9780765327338

In 1936, the Gestapo still seek crime reporter Hannah Vogel for her kidnapping Anton the young son of the now dead Nazi official Ernst Rohm five years ago (see A Trace of Smoke). However, the deadly secret police have bigger issues than an embarrassment reporter in neutral Switzerland. They need to cleanse the city of any hints of anti Semitism. Thus Vogel easily sneaks in as she has several times over the last five years (see A Night of Long Knives) under the guise this time of Swiss reporter Adelheid Zinsli covering the Olympics.

As always when she returns to Germany her contact is her pretend lover SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Lars Lang who’s turning increasingly into an alcoholic. As Adelheid she is to meet with her mentor Peter Weill, who has information he needs taken out of the country. Thus when she sees Weill drop dead at the Berlin Stadium, she assumes he was poisoned even if it looks like a heart attack. Not sure whether to trust her “lover” who she hears ugly rumors about, Vogel investigates what she assumes was a homicide while also knowing she must get Weill’s information to Switzerland before as she expects the Nazis shut down the borders following the Games completion.

Filled with twists and timely, this exciting espionage thriller occurs while the world enjoys the Berlin Games; preferring to keep their heads in the sand rather than accept the atrocities the Nazis had begun. Vogel is a super heroine who risks her life to raise the warnings about the Nazi war machine while fearing her contact will betray her. Readers will appreciate the aptly named A Game of Lies as the host country dominated the event.

Harriet Klausner