It's 1961. Former special ops guy, turned film preservationist David Toland, is tapped by (beautiful, of course) CIA agent Lana Welles to restore a movie print from World War 2. Both are shocked when they see the results. It shows Hitler being gunned down in his bunker. But then the camera pans around the room and reveals that the gunman is Hitler! Obviously the dead man is a Hitler impersonator (why not a clone?) and the real Hitler is still alive.

What follows is a fairly entertaining read as Toland and Welles, on the run from the CIA, which has somehow compromised her mission so she essentially goes rouge, travel around the world to find the truth. With a little sex thrown in for good measure.

Entertaining, but why only 2 stars?

For one thing, the story is unbelievable. Welles somehow has access to enough cash to get them from Washington, to Moscow, to Paris, to Madrid, to Brazil. Also to buy clothes appropriate for the climate (it was Christmas Eve when this adventure started), weapons, rental cars and luxury hotel accommodations. Someone is on their trail the whole way and they just avoid being killed numerous times. And even still I might have given it 3 stars except for the ending.

By the time they got to Brazil, with about 80 pages to go, I was pretty sure I'd be unhappy with the ending. Based on where the story was it didn't seem there would be enough pages to come to a conclusion without some sort of radical plot device. I began to think they were going to leave me hanging with a sequel.

SPOILERS

OK, here it is. Lana Welles turns out to be Hitler's secret daughter. Give me a break. She and Adolf (who has undergone radical plastic surgery) get the drop on Toland. He's fallen in love with her but she shoots him anyway. Right in the chest. Does he die? of course not, he had something in his vest pocket that slowed down the bullet. It all goes downhill from there.

I imagine that the authors have a sequel planned. Earlier in the book someone, in on the Hitler is still alive and planning world domination plot, told them that the Party had infiltrated Nazis into every government in the world, including the US. Removing Hitler from the top doesn't seem like enough to bring down this plot, some 15 years in the making. Since, as far as I know (and of course, how would I know), the world isn't secretly being run by Nazis today, at least one sequel is necessary to unravel the the plot and save the world.

I won't be reading it. ( )