Where Dead Men Meet

March 20, 2017
The first sentence of this uneven historical thriller from Mills (Amagansett) is a genuine attention-getter: “Had Sister Agnes been less devout, she would have lived to celebrate her forty-eighth birthday.” Late one night in 1937, at a Carthusian nunnery in England, Sister Agnes encounters an intruder who demands information about a baby boy abandoned at the nunnery’s steps 25 years earlier. Sister Agnes knows he’s referring to Luke Hamilton, whose many letters she keeps in a box beneath her bed. When she feigns ignorance, the man bludgeons her to death. Across the Channel, Luke, who’s assigned to the British embassy in Paris, is devastated by the news of the nun’s death. His world is further upended after he’s approached by a person calling himself Bernard Fautrier, which Luke assumes is an alias. At a subsequent meeting, Fautrier warns Luke that if something happens to him, Luke must disappear and take on a new identity. After this dramatic and intriguing setup, the tension gradually peters out. Memorable characters fail to redeem the so-so plot line.

Starred review from March 1, 2017

On a dark and stormy night, a baby is left on the doorstep of an orphanage outside London. Soon adopted, Luke Hamilton grows up to be a junior air intelligence officer at the British embassy in Paris. It's 1937, Europe is on the brink of war, and Luke becomes the target of an assassination attempt. Convinced it's a case of mistaken identity, he carries on until he confronts one bad guy after another. Soon he's running for his life. One hit man finally talks, and Luke realizes that he's not who he thinks he is and that deep secrets lurk behind his childhood abandonment. These are perilous times and competition for survival on the fringes of an unraveling society is fierce. Master storyteller Mills's prior books, Amagansett and The Savage Garden, were both absorbing reads, but this is a pulse-pounding thriller of the first order. Think John le Carre meets Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. VERDICT Believable characters, a richly detailed historical setting, and a story that keeps the reader's attention glued until the final page makes this a worthy addition to the many recent World War II novels.--Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2017
Somebody is trying to kill Luke Hamilton, a low-level British intelligence officer in 1937 Paris. Or is it just a case of mistaken identity, like what happened to Roger Thornhill in Hitchcock's North by Northwest? Luke wants to think so, even after one of his would-be assassins has a change of heart and helps Luke escape from Paris, sending him on the run across Europe. If he's not simply the wrong man, he knows the answers must lie in his past. Abandoned at a London orphanage, Luke has no idea who his parents are, but as his misadventures stretch from Germany to Switzerland and on to Italy, he begins to connect the dots. Along the way, he becomes entangled with Pippi Keller, who leads a cell of anti-Nazis who are smuggling Jews out of Germany. Luke's and Pippi's agendas come together, first operationally and then romantically, as the snowballing plot gathers speed and mass. Like Alan Furst, Mills has a sure hand with historical thrillers that mix intrigue, setting, and romance (House of the Hunted, 2012), and, after a five-year absence, it's great to have him back.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)