A Kill in the Morning

Shimmin delivers an old-fashioned adventure story populated with loathsome Nazi villains, a haunted antihero who says things like “I don’t like killing, but I’m good at it,” and beautiful women defined primarily by their sexual attractiveness and the degree to which they might be debased (one is unwillingly strapped into a leather catsuit straight out of a B movie). It’s 1955 in a world where the Nazis won WWII. While Britain and Germany exist in uneasy truce, a British spy and assassin continues his own stealth campaign against the men behind the deaths of his compatriots during the war. When the head of the Secret Service is assassinated, he goes AWOL to seek revenge, not knowing that his journey will bring him face-to-face with a secret German weapon that could change the course of history in more ways than one. The meticulously researched historical details lend a gloss of refinement to the lurid pulp tale. (Nov.)