From Booklist
The game of spies was one the British played exceedingly well during World War II, and their successes have generated a vast literature. This novel posits that a British espionage coup was ignored by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1940, thus allowing the German blitzkrieg to overrun the Low Countries and France in just six weeks. Most of the book is about the flight of two people from the Nazis. One is Hobbs, a British operative with a dubious reputation as a con man and opportunist. The other is Eva Bernhardt, a young German woman "recruited" by Hobbs. Hobbs is inserted into Germany to extract Eva after she obtains information about the Germans' thrust into the west. Chasing these two are Hagen and Frick, smart and relentless officers in the Gestapo's intelligence unit. It's spy versus spy, agent and double agent, double cross and triple cross. It's taut and lean and filled with action, yet author Altman still finds room for insightful reflections on the motives, morals, and misgivings of all the primary characters. A first-rate military thriller.
Thomas GaughanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2001
Tightly plotted, briskly paced: in its admirable economy what thrillers ought to be and seldom are.
