The Afrika Reich

Saville’s tremendously satisfying debut, an alternative-history thriller that supposes there was no WWII, will please fans of Frederick Forsyth and Len Deighton. In 1952, nine years after the Casablanca Conference that divided (“cleaved” was Churchill’s word) Africa between Britain and Germany, allowing Germany to regain the colonies it lost under the Treaty of Versailles, retired assassin Burton Cole is hoping to start a new and tranquil existence in Sussex. But those hopes are scuttled by an offer he can’t refuse. A Rhodesian, Donald Ackerman, informs him that a man Cole believed dead, Nazi Walter Hochburg, is alive and serving as the governor-general of the German colony of Kongo. Cole, who blames Hochburg for his mother’s disappearance, hopes to learn the truth of the circumstances from the Nazi before taking his revenge. Saville gets everything right—providing suspenseful action sequences, logical but enthralling plot twists, a fully thought through imaginary world, and characters with depth. Agent: Jonathan Pegg, Jonathan Pegg Literary. (Feb.)