The Bookworm - A Novel - Hardcover

Mitch Silver

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1681776413 ISBN 13: 9781681776415

Publisher: Pegasus, 2018

Synopsis

Europe, 1940: It's late summer and Belgium has been overrun by the German army. Posing as a friar, a British operative talks his way into the monastery at Villers-devant-Orval just before Nazi art thieves plan to sweep through the area and whisk everything of value back to Berlin. But the ersatz man of the cloth is no thief. Instead, that night headds an old leather Bible to the monastery's library and then escapes. London, 2017: A construction worker operating a backhoe makes a grisly discovery--a skeletal arm-bone with a rusty handcuff attached to the wrist. Was this the site, as a BBC newsreader speculates, of "a long-forgotten prison, uncharted on any map?" One viewer knows better: it's all that remains of a courier who died in a V-2 rocket attack. The woman who will put these two disparate events together--and understand the looming tragedy she must hurry to prevent--is Russian historian and former Soviet chess champion Larissa Mendelovg Klimt, "Lara the Bookworm," to her friends. She's also experiencing some woeful marital troubles In the course of this riveting thriller, Lara will learn the significance of six musty Dictaphone cylinders recorded after D-Day by Noel Coward--actor, playwright and, secretly, a British agent reporting directly to Winston Churchill. She will understand precisely why that leather Bible, scooped up by the Nazis and deposited on the desk of Adolf Hitler days before he planned to attack Britain, played such a pivotal role in turning his guns to the East. And she will discover the new secret pact negotiated by the nefarious Russian president and his newly elected American counterpart--maverick and dealmaker--and the evil it portends Oh, and she'll reconcile with her husband.

About this title

Review:

Silver impressively overlays speculative scenarios atop actual historical events. The multi-layered conspiracies are well-imagined.

Compelling. A story Ian Fleming himself would have enjoyed. Harks back to the best of the Cold War thrillers.

Silver mounts suspense ever so slowly but ever so surely that you find yourself breathlessly waiting for a startling denouement.

A great thriller, worthy of Ian Fleming himself --and the story might even be true.

Silver spins an entertaining tale, and his high spirits are so contagious that readers will happily go along for the ride.

The Bookworm is that very rare, almost extinct thriller: well plotted, intelligent as hell, with a truly memorable main character --'Lara The Bookworm.' This is definitely sterling Silver!

About the Author:

Mitch Silver is the author of the critically acclaimed In Secret Service (S&S). He an advertising agency creative director who lives in Rye, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pegasus
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1681776413
• ISBN 13: 9781681776415
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352