The First Sacrifice

``I am not I; he is not he; they are not they.'' Suspense fans will recognize the opening epigraph of Gifford's new novel as the one that, 19 years ago, began The Wind Chill Factor , perhaps the best Fourth Reich Nazi thriller ever. Now, after several intervening novels (most recently, Praetorian ), Gifford continues the story of the Cooper family--and the good news is that the sequel is nearly as good as the original. It's the 1990s, 20 years after the violent Siege of Cooper's Falls. Germany is unified, and John Cooper's sister, Lee, is married to Wolf Koller--industrialist, real estate tycoon and secret sponsor of right-wing terrorist groups whose riots and rallies seem to be staged to solidify Koller as the law-and-order power behind whoever runs the new Germany. But Koller is also the force behind a secret plan called SPARTAKUS; when his grown daughter, Erika, finds out about it, she tries to kill herself, fails and then vanishes. Desperate, Lee reaches out to John, now running a movie house/bookstore in Boston. Traveling to Germany to find the missing young woman, he becomes enmeshed in a web of shifting loyalties and international intrigue that's centered around SPARTAKUS, the threat of a united Germany and the shadow of Adolf Hitler. This is a more conventional thriller than its predecessor, but it stands on its own and makes the Cooper family history intelligible to newcomers without giving away the surprises of the first book. Unlike The Wind Chill Factor , moreover, this is told in the third person, giving Gifford more latitude in characterization and plotting. Withholding some twists until the very end, this outstanding thriller will nail readers to the page as it takes current events and concerns about the new Germany to a chillingly logical conclusion. 100,000 first printing; Literary Guild, Mystery Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. (Oct.)