Here's a long lost genre that SQ stumbled upon and immediately loved....high octane international thrillers about Neo-Nazis making a comeback for another go at conquering humanity.
Oh yes,,.....in these propulsive and scary novels, the Nazis were back, bigger, badder and more murderous than ever.
For a few months or so, I couldn't get my hands on these books fast enough, staying up all night to finish 'em.
After re-reading this one, it holds up as one of my favorites even more. Maybe because we''re facing a fascist, racist psychotic Presidential candidate, of course, but also, I'm more appreciative of the family melancholy and tragedy that hangs over the story, deepening its violent thrills.
Nazi-ism hovers like a perpetual dark cloud over alcoholic, recently divorced John Cooper and his family, forever stained by his wealthy, industrialist grandfather, who notoriously befriended Adolf Hitler and other Third Reich gangsters.
When Cooper's called back to the family's Minnesota homestead, beckoned mysteriously by his brother, he's immediately plunged into an an all out assault by Neo-Nazi agents. The Fourth Reich goons wage war on Cooper's snowbound little town as if they're storming through Europe all over again.....with murders, firefights and bombs.
Somehow surviving this dead-of-winter Britzkrieg, Cooper and the oddball town sheriff both end up in Europe, joining forces to track down and confront the revitalized Nazi plotters.....
For Cooper, the hunt becomes intensely poignant and personal........after discovering that his late little sister Lee, long believed dead under the rubble of the London blitz, may be alive and well and all grown up.......and married to the head Neo Nazi. Yikes.
Author Gifford unleashes many surprises along the way, as you'd expect in this kind of thriller..........but nothing compares to the monstrously overwhelming twist he saves for the final chapters, an evil, profoundly depressing turn of events worthy of Richard Condon's "Marchurian Candidate."
Far fetched? Outrageous? Maybe in 1975.......but in this day and age, it's far easier to swallow the premise of "The Wind Chill Factor" than ever before. And come November, we're be closer than ever to tumbling down the abyss of a rabid dictator tossing away 248 years of Democracy.
And that's why I'm giving it 4 bone-chillin' stars (****). and recommend you check this one out as preview of potential horrifying coming attractions. Prepare to stay up all night......
For a few months or so, I couldn't get my hands on these books fast enough, staying up all night to finish 'em.
After re-reading this one, it holds up as one of my favorites even more. Maybe because we''re facing a fascist, racist psychotic Presidential candidate, of course, but also, I'm more appreciative of the family melancholy and tragedy that hangs over the story, deepening its violent thrills.
Nazi-ism hovers like a perpetual dark cloud over alcoholic, recently divorced John Cooper and his family, forever stained by his wealthy, industrialist grandfather, who notoriously befriended Adolf Hitler and other Third Reich gangsters.
When Cooper's called back to the family's Minnesota homestead, beckoned mysteriously by his brother, he's immediately plunged into an an all out assault by Neo-Nazi agents. The Fourth Reich goons wage war on Cooper's snowbound little town as if they're storming through Europe all over again.....with murders, firefights and bombs.
Somehow surviving this dead-of-winter Britzkrieg, Cooper and the oddball town sheriff both end up in Europe, joining forces to track down and confront the revitalized Nazi plotters.....
For Cooper, the hunt becomes intensely poignant and personal........after discovering that his late little sister Lee, long believed dead under the rubble of the London blitz, may be alive and well and all grown up.......and married to the head Neo Nazi. Yikes.
Author Gifford unleashes many surprises along the way, as you'd expect in this kind of thriller..........but nothing compares to the monstrously overwhelming twist he saves for the final chapters, an evil, profoundly depressing turn of events worthy of Richard Condon's "Marchurian Candidate."
Far fetched? Outrageous? Maybe in 1975.......but in this day and age, it's far easier to swallow the premise of "The Wind Chill Factor" than ever before. And come November, we're be closer than ever to tumbling down the abyss of a rabid dictator tossing away 248 years of Democracy.
And that's why I'm giving it 4 bone-chillin' stars (****). and recommend you check this one out as preview of potential horrifying coming attractions. Prepare to stay up all night......
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