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Summary: Kelly Langer's review
Review: A most EXCELLENT read. People should read this material, just for the historical refresher course. The characters and the continuing suspense are total page turners. Mr.Iles has captured a perfect mix of mystery,love,hate, and war. Although,it is not all factual,this novel is very,very, moving. It makes a person feel involved.
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Summary: THE MAN AT SPANDAU
Review: A superb blend of historical fact and intriguing speculation resulting in a fascinating and thrilling novel, the type that you just can't put down. Was the man in Spandau truly Rudolph Hess or was he a double? If he was a double, who was he and what really happened to Rudolph Hess? Why did the Allied Powers keep him in prison for so long if he was not a war criminal, involved in the implementation of the holocaust and other assorted Nazi atrocities? Why did Hitler allow the British to retreat and escape at Dunkirk and why did he not invade England as he had threatened? If you like historical fiction or if you simply enjoy a good thrilling novel, then SPANDAU PHOENIX is for you ... 695 pages of non-stop action and suspense. Highly recommended!
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Summary: This is a great book for anyone wholikes nazi history
Review: a young german police officer finds some papers of a prisoner at Sapndau and he takes them home which starts a tremendous search for the papers from all major countries.
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Summary: Amazing first work
Review: An amazing first effort from Iles. I have little to add to what has already been said except for the stars. The book pulls you in and along. Need a beach book or a vacation read, you won't regret this one.
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Summary: Gripping Page Turner!
Review: Another great read from Greg Iles that only occasionally gets bogged down with overkill (literally and figruatively!). Great genre opus for fans of WWII intrigue. Set aside a weekend for this one...even though it moves quickly and the pages turn themselves, it's a long one and you won't want to miss a chapter. Since they breeze by so quickly, you won't want to break it up into too many sittings and lose the continuity. Interesting and innovative!
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Summary: Up all night
Review: Anytime a book has me so absorbed that it is absolute torture to put it down and go to sleep, so much so that daylight peaks through the venetian blinds to my utter surprise and dismay, you can bet the author has done his homework in plotting and character. That happened not on one but two successive nights and had I been a slower reader, I well might've dived into a coma for lack of sleep altogether. I am a doctor by trade, but have just finished the first draft of my own novel, and though its nowhere near the level of this book (yet), the experience has given me an appreciation of just how much work a tale of this sophistication and creativity requires. What a book. What a talent.
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Summary: If you love to hate Nazis...you love this book!
Review: Greg Iles has created an amazing book with strong characters. The plot is wrapped in historical facts that add to the believability of such a great story. I highly recommend this book! Read it!
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Summary: The best historical thriller ever
Review: Greg Iles has managed to combine the historical espionage of authors such as Jack Higgins and Len Deighton with the techno-realism of Tom Clancy in Spandau Phoenix. Mr. Iles offers an intelligent trade to authors like Higgins, with sharply drawn characters, whether historical or fictional, in a way that Jack Higgins has never done. This book has the subtle feel of authenticity, whether Mr. Iles is describing the murky situation of post WWII international relations, or an assault on Horn's house in the Transvaal. I honestly have to say that this book ranks up there with The Day of the Jackal, The Manchurian Candidate, and all of the world's best thrillers. Congratulations, Mr. Iles! You've got me hooked!
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Summary: The malabaryst
Review: Greg Iles is a different author. I've read three of his books, and all of them are different one from another. In "The quiet game" you have a legal thriller similar to John Grisham - when Grisham was good. "24 hours" is a very fast-paced kidnapping thriller, better than James Patterson's Alex Cross series' best moments. "Spandau phoenix" is totally different, a blend of World War II intrigue with a Clancy-esque plot of world-wide struggle for power.
The book starts simply enough, moments after Spandau prison, in Berlin, is demolished. Hans Apfel, a low-profile policeman, finds, during his nightly rounds through the rubble, a stack of papers signed by Spandau's most famous prisoner, Rudolph Hess. The papers contain information that could, through a series of seemingly unrelated events, get the world into a nuclear war.
Rudolph Hess' story and all the misteries involving his secret mission to England are still largely unaccounted for - at least to the general public, even after sixty years. Based on these premisses, Iles provides his readers with a plot that goes from the still divided Germany of 1987 to South Africa, Lybia and Israel. Iles throws lots of balls in the air, the characters start to appear before the reader's eyes, only to be slain a few pages later, or to disappear for long times; subplots follow subplots - there's even a subplot that is set during the War, featuring Hitler and Heydrich. However, Iles never drops the balls, or the pace of his narrative. The final moments of the story are incredibly fast-paced, when most of the characters and the plots are sewn together; pursuits, narrow escapes, dazzling machine guns; Greg Iles writes about all this with an easiness compared to Tom Clancy's early Ryan novels.
"Spandau phoenix" is a very nice thriller-slash-historic fiction by one of my favorite new authors - along with Michael Connely.
Grade 9.0/10
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Summary: An Action-Packed Thriller With Too Many Pages!
Review: Greg Iles really packed the action into "Spandau Phoenix." I would have rated the book higher, but it is way too long and goes off on many unnecessary tangents. A tighter narrative would have made a more suspenseful, and enjoyable read. However, if you have the patience to hang-in through almost 700 pages, you may find this suspense thriller very worth while. Berlin's Spandau Prison, where WWII Nazi war criminals were kept, was the last residence of Rudolph Hess, Prisoner #7, and Hitler's one time second in command. Hess left Nazi Germany in 1941 and flew a plane to Great Britain. His reasons, or mission, for going to the UK were never revealed. Hitler publicly called Hess insane for making the flight and parachuting into enemy territory. When Hess supposedly committed suicide in his prison cell in 1987, he was Spandau's last occupant. The prison was then scheduled to be destroyed. As crowds gathered to watch the demolition of this famous building, Berlin police were assigned to maintain crown control. KGB agents diligently photographed the crowd for later identification by the East German Stasi. Among the observers was an Israeli agent. A German police captain, in charge of the contingent guarding the rubble, unexpectedly finds mysterious papers hidden in what was Hess' cell. The papers were all written in Latin, a language he does not understand, except for the first paragraph, which is in German. The paragraph interested the police officer enough for him to bring the papers home to his wife to translate. Thus begins a desperate and brutal quest by the Soviets, British, Americans, and an Israeli agent for the Spandau Diaries - a search which leaves many dead bodies in its wake. Was Rudolph Hess really Prisoner #7, or did he have a double? Did Hess have a political agenda when he parachuted into Great Britain or was he really insane? Were members of the British nobility involved in a subversive plot with Hess and Hitler? This novel involves Germans, Russians, Israelis, British, Americans, South Africans, and Libyans. Iles' extraordinary tale takes the reader on a terrifying adventure into the past, which leads to the chilling realities of the present, that could very well result in worldwide nuclear war. His action scenes are so well written that they are almost visual, and certainly bring this drama to life. The main characters are complex and well defined, individually and in their relationships to each other. The ending will have you on the edge of your seat. In spite of the book's unnecessary length, and a confusing narrative at the beginning, I do recommend "Spandau Phoenix" to fans of mystery-thrillers and espionage novels. Bottom line - great plot and characters overcome any flaws.
JANA
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