Dry Bones

A botched OSS operation propels Quinn’s well-constructed third thriller featuring Fintan Dunne (after 2010’s The Man Who Never Returned). Near the end of WWII, an assignment on the Eastern Front has Dunne attempting to contact Resistance fighters in Slovakia. When things go south, Dunne catches typhus and breaks an ankle. Soon afterwards, he learns from an Auschwitz survivor about ghastly experiments at that camp by a doctor nicknamed “the Blue Devil.” Thirteen years later, Dunne has settled into a career as a PI, helping to run a large firm in New York City. Slowly, however, his past creeps up on him. When Turlough Bassante, a brilliantly eccentric colleague from Dunne’s days with the OSS, resurfaces with information about the Blue Devil, Dunne pursues the connections between the Nazi war criminal and the American intelligence community. Brilliantly researched, the book’s only weakness is a halting pace that at times renders exciting plot details perplexing. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency. (Nov.)