A nuclear-arms race hinges on finding a reclusive Italian physicist in Dyer’s third novel in the Conor Thorn spy series.

Dyer, author of The Ultra Betrayal (2020), delivers a well-researched novel inspired by the true story of the mysterious disappearance of Ettore Majorana, an Italian physicist. Considered by many of his peers a genius in the fields of mathematics and atomic physics, Majorana unexpectedly went missing in March 1938. Dyer portrays him as a tormented soul hoping to find God in an Italian monastery after a failed suicide attempt, taking a new identity as Brother Bini. He’s identified several years later by a plumber who has family ties to Benito Mussolini’s secret police. Word of the physicist’s discovery quickly spreads, and soon operatives from the Vatican, the Nazis, and the Allies are racing to get to him first. Conor Thorn, an agent of the Office of Strategic Services—a CIA precursor—is assigned as lead of the extraction op in Italy. Tensions are high for both the Allies and Axis powers as pressure mounts on both sides to develop the first nuclear weapon. Thorn is joined by MI6 Agent Emily Bright, and their growing romantic relationship is central to the storyline. Several theories have been suggested to explain what happened to the real-life Majorana, and Dyer’s novel creatively presents a blend of hypotheses. Dyer seamlessly incorporates fictional characters and historical figures into the wartime setting to portray imaginative yet conceivable events leading up to the physicist’s surprising fate. However, the brisk spy story he tells also includes occasional emotional turns: Thorn and Bright experience a personal tragedy, and at one point, Majorana insists he’d rather die than help create a weapon of mass destruction and threatens to sabotage weapon development work.

A high-stakes World War II thriller inspired by true events and full of drama and fast-paced action.

In Dyer’s fourth historical thriller-series installment, Office of Strategic Services agent Conor Thorn races to recover an important document during World War II.

Thorn and his wife, Emily, are both recently fired spies—he by the OSS, she by MI6. U.S. Navy Cmdr. Harry Butcher tells them that there’s a way for them both to be reinstated—all they must do is find, and possibly destroy, a secret dossier. It contains information about the Group of Five who plotted the assassination of François Darlan, the high commissioner of France for North and West Africa. If the OSS and British Special Operations Executive are implicated in the document, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower will resign, which will be catastrophic for the Allied Forces. The catch is that the Thorns only have 10 days to locate it, and they’re not the only people searching. Dyer’s book is broken into digestible chunks, each with a time, date, and place name, and ricochets among various fictional characters (Kurt Eklof, a Nazi with an eye patch; Germaine Gilbert, the madam of a brothel) and real-life historical figures, including Butcher, Eisenhower, Nazi officer Klaus Barbie, and Winston Churchill. This creates a sense of movement and activity, but sometimes results in a lack of character development. However, a few figures, including René DuBois, an antisemite whose mother helps persecuted Jewish people, get more complex treatment. Dyer details a cold, brutal, and violent world. Conor is depicted as a hotheaded spy who mainly relies on weapons such as knives, guns, and grenades; he has a concussion that causes blackouts and memory loss, but luckily, he has someone he can trust: Emily, who’s portrayed as having learned to navigate the hypermasculine world of espionage with finesse. Overall, the period is well-researched, and the action sequences convey tension and excitement; they include the opening scene in the Basilique Notre Dame d’Afrique, another aboard the submarine Casabianca, and another involving a cemetery showdown in which Emily and Conor stave off four men.

A series entry that offers thrills, intriguing locations, and brash heroics.

This sequel follows an American and British spy team during World War II.

England, 1942. The crucial secrets of Bletchley Park, Britain’s code and cipher school, are in jeopardy. Swedish cryptologist Gunnar Lind has disappeared from the school, and it is vital to the war effort that his knowledge of Britain’s code-breaking program doesn’t end up in Nazi hands. Winston Churchill knows just whom he wants for the mission: Conor Thorn and Emily Bright. Conor is an agent of the OSS, America’s newly inaugurated intelligence agency. He’s known for his rather reckless methods—like his recent shootout with German spies in the Lisbon airport. Emily is an MI6 agent who worked with Conor successfully on his previous mission—and who has developed strong feelings for him despite herself. Conor is a bit distracted after recently learning that his wife, Grace, was raped not long before her death. Emily goes ahead to Stockholm to search for Lind, but when she turns up missing, Conor must go after her, accompanied by the cryptologist’s highly suspicious wife, Eve. With so many emotions involved, it’s all but inevitable that Conor will resort to even more reckless tactics to save Emily and the Allied war effort. Dyer’s detailed prose excels at evoking the feel of World War II spycraft—or at least the sense of it that readers have in their minds: An operative’s “suite at the Grand was impressively spacious, as well as being neat and orderly, as if an army of maids had just left….A small envelope lay on top of the paper. An ashtray, free from any ash, was placed alongside the newspaper and a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes, unopened.” The book features the requisite historical cameos—Alan Turing, Edward R. Murrow, Ian Fleming—and plenty of cloak-and-dagger encounters, which will please readers enough to ignore the rather contrived plot. Grace’s assault seems a bit exploitatively dark for this sort of novel, which can at times feel quite cartoonish. But fans of this genre will enjoy Dyer’s handling of the setting and the tropes.

A fun, if slightly flawed, wartime espionage tale.

In this debut spy novel, two secret agents attempt to protect the Allies from intelligence leaks.

October 1942. When a document containing the directives of the Allies’ first joint offensive against the Axis powers goes missing from an American air base in England, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower orders the fledgling OSS—an American intelligence service formed a mere four months prior—to recover it by any means. It falls to agent Conor Thorn, a “reckless cowboy” who was drummed out of the U.S. Navy for reasons he would rather not talk about, to recover the document. The invasion ships are already packed and scheduled to sail, and time is of the utmost importance. “At the outside, you have sixteen days,” Thorn is informed when he receives his instructions. “Don’t use them all.” Assigned to help Thorn is MI6 agent Emily Bright, a former aid to Winston Churchill who proved herself in the service of the War Cabinet during the Blitz. Bright will stop at nothing to put an end to the German war machine, and Thorn will do anything to prove that, despite his checkered past, he is a soldier worth his salt. The two will have to work together to discover what treacherous element within the Allied forces is feeding information to the Nazis in order to save Operation Torch—the British and American invasion of German-held North Africa—from becoming a massacre. Dyer writes in a confident, gripping prose that adeptly summons the formality and intrigue of World War II intelligence. It is apparent how enamored the author is of the milieu, and while the plot moves along at a steady clip, Dyer isn’t afraid to let his scenes marinate at times. With cameos from the likes of Charles de Gaulle, Churchill, Eisenhower, and Hedy Lamarr, the book delivers plenty of fun for fans of historical fiction while managing to present a genuinely entertaining spy mystery. The usual genre beats are present, but Thorn and Bright make a compelling pair, and the reader should be pleased to follow them in future adventures.

A well-crafted espionage tale set during World War II.