Courtney’s War

Set during WWII, bestseller Smith’s well-told 17th Courtney novel (after 2017’s War Cry, also coauthored with Churchill) finds Saffron Courtney, who serves in Britain’s Special Operations Executive, preparing to slip into Belgium in 1942 to identify the SOE agent who has betrayed their spy network to the Nazis. Saffron devises a complicated plan to infiltrate herself into the Nazi power structure. Meanwhile, in German-occupied Russia, Saffron’s lover, Luftwaffe air ace Gerhard von Meerbach, witnesses the latest techniques for slaughtering Jews in vast numbers, which solidifies his hatred of the Nazi regime. After surviving the Battle of Stalingrad, Gerhard joins a secret anti-Hitler conspiracy. He’s caught and thrown into a concentration camp and eventually winds up in Dachau. As the war winds down, Saffron undertakes a mission to save several British agents held in a German POW camp before the Russians get to them. The authors ramp up the tension as Saffron races to the rescue and Gerhard fights to stay alive. Readers will eagerly await the next installment in the saga. Agent: Kevin Conroy Scott, Tibor Jones & Assoc. (U.K.). (Sept.)