THE AMERICAN SPY

In Wiegmann’s novel, a spy sabotages Germany’s V2 rocket development in an attempt to save the Allies from a ghastly weapon of destruction.

Mathias Jansen is a young engineer working in Germany in the late 1930s. He is no fan of Hitler and the Nazis, so he’s recruited as a spy inside the Fatherland. His one assignment is to sabotage and thus slow the development of the V2 rocket, one of Hitler’s so-called wonder weapons. He is also in love with Marie Parisi, who has similar feelings for him and also hates the Nazis. Every story needs a good archvillain, and here it’s Walter Mayer, a memorably sadistic and ambitious Gestapo officer. Jansen speaks fluent German and is patriotic, brave, and as handsome as Marie is beautiful. After specialized training (guns, explosives, etc.) he is parachuted into occupied Poland along with a pallet of explosives and other equipment. His job is to find and destroy the factories that produce the various deadly components of the V2. He is successful in sabotaging three or four suppliers but is finally caught and spends 18 months imprisoned and brutally tortured on a daily basis at the hands of Mayer. Marie is also tracked down and treated in a similar fashion. Wiegmann is a natural storyteller, seamlessly weaving his characters Jansen, Parisi, and Mayer into the larger historical fabric, which features real-life figures like Wild Bill Donovan, Wernher von Braun, and Robert Goddard. (Helpfully, the author also includes an afterword listing all the historical figures included in the novel and a brief minibiography of each.) Particularly well rendered are the training sessions in spycraft in which Jansen proves an ideal pupil and the dramatic run-ins with the Gestapo. There are also torture scenes that are so vividly drawn they may be hard for some readers to stomach. The only real downside here is occasionally stiff dialogue (“Lieutenant, you and men like you make me proud to wear this uniform”) reminiscent of propaganda films that Hollywood was churning out during the war. But issues like these are minor and can’t detract from the novel’s page-turning plot and believable action.

A meticulously detailed spy story that delivers action, international intrigue, and seductive romance.