By Tom Hyman
There's not a dull moment in this racy novel distilled from recent headlines. A lot of incredible, even impossible, events take place, but readers aren't given time to mull them over. As World War II ends, a Nazi SS guard escapes from Dachau and secretly starts a new life in the U.S. He marries into a wealthy family and becomes a powerful corporate executive with a tough reputation: "People who spent much time under the sway of William Grunwald invariably seemed to develop nervous afflictions, almost as if he gave off—in the domineering manner in which he took control of everyone and everything around him—some kind of radiation that corroded one's health." His three children are his victims too. They include a missing-in-action hero from the Vietnam War, a daughter who is a lawyer and a third son who was a draft dodger in Canada and then a cocaine addict. It is this son who goes to Vietnam to rescue his brother. When the younger brother learns about his father's sinister past, he decides that "it would take him a long time to sort it all out, but he had the overwhelming intuition that it was all going to make sense now." It doesn't exactly, but there is a beautiful blonde for the young son to love, and the bad guys pay dearly for their crimes. Hyman, a former Saturday Evening Post editor, is the author of two other novels. He knows how to keep the action moving. (Viking, $17.95)
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