Thursday February 15, 2007

The Valhalla Exchange

Having been published in 1976 under the name Harry Patterson Jack Higgins and his publisher decided to reprint the book using his name. This is the second book he has sent out to the booksellers shelves in this way in recent months. The author dedicates the book to his parents for helping him out more than a little on this one . The story centres on Martin Bormamm and Higgins uses the back drop of the dying moments of Hitler's reign over Germany for this book. What happened to Martin Bormamm in real life has been one of World War Two's enduring mysteries over the years. The story starts in Bolivia where Martin Bormamm was suspected of being there running Kameradenwerk the Action for Comrades spending the money the Nazis had salted way. Canning who was there when the events happened tells this story when a journalist meets him in Bolivia.

Bormann conveniently arranges for plastic surgery on someone to make himself a twin called Strasser and then we are never sure which one is where in the story. One of the twins escapes Berlin and heads out to a POW camp to get some hostages in a vain attempt to save themselves or change the result of the war. The allies meanwhile are closing on the POW camp and a small band of them and some unlikely allies are holed up in the POW Castle Schloss Arlberg with Strasser or Bormann and a motley crew of Finnish soldiers champing at the bit to storm the place. There are two people in the castle who are double agents and both try to help the Finnish soldiers break into the castle but both are found out before they can succeed in doing so. Finally the battle of the castle starts and this is Higgins at his best I think at this point in the story. At the end we return to Bolivia and Canning tells the journalist not to print the story until he has died and in true Higgins style does so in an airplane crash soon afterwards.The final mystery as the journalist visits the grace in Arlington and finds a scarlet rose on the grave with the words As promised by them. What happens to Strasser or Bormann I will leave a secret in case you read the book but it is not a bad read