The Master Sniper

In the spring of 1945, Lieutenant-Colonel Repp, the titular sharpshooter of this compelling thriller, has been charged by his Nazi superiors in the collapsing Third Reich to commit a particularly despicable assassination. Aided by the deadly creativity of German military engineering, Repp, a cold-blooded killer, hones his skills on hapless death camp inmates before embarking on his mission, which will imprint the dark ideals of Nazism on the postwar world. It falls to Jim Leets, an American small-arms intelligence agent, to unravel the mystery of Repp's new weaponry and sinister assignment. With his fully realized characters, from the depressed but determined sleuth Leets to the ruthlessly dutiful Repp, Hunter (Black Light) has crafted an engrossing and vividly written tale that touches on the nascent Zionist movement and Allied indifference to the Holocaust on its intriguing path to a tense and satisfying climax. (July)