Friday 4 December 2015

REVIEW: Iain King - Secrets of the Last Nazi (Myles Munro #1)

Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 9th July 2015
Pages: 395

MY REVIEW:

I received an advance copy of Secrets of the Last Nazi by Iain King from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Bookouture.

I have never read anything by Iain King before. The reason I picked this up is purely and simply because, I liked the look of the synopsis when I saw it on NetGalley and everything else I have read from Bookouture has been absolutely top quality. I was hoping this would be the same.

In 2015, a well-connected ex SS commander dies. He takes with him the last remaining secret of the Nazi era. Or does he?

An international investigation is set up to try and uncover the secret Werner Stolz was protecting.

Led by an unconventional English military historian, Myles Munro, the team must chase every clue left behind to try and decipher them to discover exactly what Stolz was hiding.

What follows is a furious chase across three countries, dodging conspiracies and espionage at every turn. Some want the secret to go public. Some don’t. And there is a traitor in the team.

So modern day tales chasing Nazi secrets across Europe are something I love to read so I was really looking forward to this one. Although I enjoyed it I was left wanting more from the story. I’ll explain why.

We have a mixed bag of characters in this one. Myles himself is a bit of an enigma. He is obviously very clever and an expert in his field but also is a bit unorthodox and to be honest lacked a bit of oomph for me in this story. His colleagues on the team are there purely on the requests of their respective governments. We have Glenn, an American with a lot of secrets of his own. He is the doubting Thomas of the group, never believing anything they discover.

We have Zenyalena, a Russian who is the person who put the investigation in motion. She is a stereotypical hard faced Russian who wants the answers yesterday and will stop at nothing to get them. Jean-Francois is the French delegate. He is a bit out of his depth but seems to be the only genuine member of the team. He is replaced later on the team by Pascal who seems the strong silent type but he also has secrets. Their translator is a young German woman by the name of Heike-Ann. She is quite a timid character and again always feels to be a bit out of her depth.

On the evil side of things we have Father Samuel. He is a very mysterious man who lives in the Middle East and it’s hard at times to figure out his exact role in the story. Deiter is his partner in crime, shadowing the investigation team in Europe. Again very mysterious but deadly with it.

The plot is as it says in the blurb. The Nazi kept secrets and team are put together to find out what they were. Some people don’t want the secrets to be made public and will do anything they can to prevent the team from finding the answers.

I did enjoy this story but to be honest it had potential to be so much better than it was. There were a lot of times during the story where everything just felt a bit flat to me. The team have a series of clues to follow to get to the end prize. Each time they get a clue something seems to go wrong and they always seem to get out of their pickle. A couple of these occasions seemed a bit unbelievable to me and should have been much more difficult to get out of than they were. It was almost like The A Team at times because they could get round anything that was thrown at them.

The Father Samuel part of the story was also a bit confusing for me. Without giving anything away, it was difficult to try and figure out exactly why he wanted the secret kept and his relationship with Deiter was also confusing at times. They were able to organise things which again, seemed almost impossible to do.

I did like Mr King’s writing style. He tells a good story and for the most part this was a very enjoyable read. I just didn’t like the confusing bits nor the flat bits.

It looks like Myles Munro is going to be a recurring character for Iain King. I will definitely read more of him. I just hope the stories and the characters develop a bit better. For me, they need a bit more meat on them and definitely need more oomph in the stories. He certainly has the writing talent to do this.

To summarise: a thrilling chase across Europe chasing Nazi secrets and dodging nasty men that want the secrets to be kept just that. Secret. A good read but definitely needed more for me to get the score up.


General rating:

★★★ needed more for me.

Thriller rating:

★★★ and again.


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Thanks.




Book Synopsis:

THE GREATEST DISCOVERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY.

KEPT SECRET.

UNTIL NOW.

Berlin, 2015 – a well-connected SS Commander is found dead, having protected the last secret of the Nazi empire for seventy years. A discovery by Nazi Scientists so potent it could change the balance of world power – forever.

Led by misfit military historian Myles Munro, an international team begin to piece together the complex puzzle left by SS Captain Werner Stolz. As their hunt across Europe gathers pace, the brutal killing of one of the group signals that they are not the only ones chasing the answer.

Plunged into a world of international espionage, Myles only has his intellect and instincts to keep him alive. As the team edge closer to an explosive truth, it becomes clear to him that there is a traitor amongst them.

Who can Myles trust? And can he unravel the clues of the past in time to save the future?

Secrets of the Last Nazi is as controversial as it is compelling. A heart-stopping, action-packed and scarily plausible adventure which will captivate fans of Dan Brown, Scott Mariani and Clive Cussler.


Iain King CBE is an expert on military history, and has lectured about war to packed university halls across Britain. He has worked in ten conflicts around the world, and in 2013 became one of the youngest people ever to be honoured with the title 'Commander of the British Empire', for his frontline roles in Libya, Afghanistan and Kosovo. He has already written acclaimed non-fiction books on modern conflict, the history of ideas, and philosophy. 'Secrets of the Last Nazi' is his debut novel.

NEWSFLASH: 'Secrets of the Last Nazi' has just become the NUMBER ONE new release in its fiction category in the USA!







And for more about Iain, visit his site or find him on social media:


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