The Last Nazi

July 7, 2003
It's difficult to come up with a fresh Nazi scenario without resorting to the cloning gambit, but Pottinger (The Fourth Procedure; A Slow Burning) succeeds admirably in this hair-raising thriller. His villain, Adalwolf, the 16-year-old foster son of Dr. Josef Mengele, joins the short list of fiction's baddest bad boys from the very first sentence. The setting is Auschwitz, Christmas Eve, 1944: "He heard a soft voice, a little girl's voice, singing quietly in the operating room. When it stopped, Adalwolf told her to keep singing, there was no need to be afraid, everything was going to be fine." The reader understands that nothing from here on out is going to be fine. Fifty-eight years later, gutsy Melissa Gale, a lawyer for the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, joins a SWAT team as they blast through the door of an apartment where the elderly Adalwolf is hiding. Melissa has been hunting this particular Nazi for five years, and he's taunted her throughout the chase. Adalwolf has murdered three people in the process of cooking up a deadly virus that threatens to kill every Jew in the world. The concept of a designer virus dedicated to wiping out one particular ethnic or racial group has been fielded, but Pottinger's take is by far the best of the bunch. Add a kidnapped child, more cold-blooded murder and a pregnant heroine who may be carrying the deadly plague along with her baby, and you've got a lethal prescription for a stay-up-all-night read. Agents, Joni Evans and Owen Laster. (Aug.)Forecast:St. Martin's is laying on a four-city author tour and a national radio advertising campaign to get the word out on this one. That plus Pottinger's past readership should push him onto some lists.

For five years Melissa Gale has been hunting a Nazi named Adalwolf, an assistant of Dr. Mengeles. But Adalwolf has always managed to stay one step ahead of the hunt. Now Adalwolf has created a virus that will kill people with Jewish genes; he just needs to find a host in which to incubate it. Melissa has always felt as if her job were somehow personal, and she's about to discover just how personal it really is. Pottinger has created a fictional twist on a WWII theme that keeps listeners on the edge of their seats. Paul Hecht and Maggi-Meg Reed deliver a chilling tale with voices that speed up with the intensity of the plot and mesh well with each other. A must listen. J.F.M. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine