Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Black Cross (World War II, Bk 2)

Black Cross (World War II, Bk 2)
reviewed on + 179 more book reviews


After Dr. Mark (Mac) McConnell dies, his grandson discovers the American pacifist had served the war effort 50 years ago: D-Day is imminent when British Prime Minister Churchill learns that the Nazis have a "Black Cross" class of deadly nerve gases. The British coerce Mac, then a defensive chemical warfare researcher at Oxford, into accompanying a battle-hardened Zionist to execute a plan to convince the Germans that the British also have the gas. Mac and his accomplice must penetrate the German concentration camp where the gases are being developed and tested, then destroy the camp with the Allies' own tiny supply of Black Cross gas. Aided by a German nurse, they pull off the improbable plot. Like Iles's previous book, Spandau Phoenix (LJ, 4/15/93), this is graphically violent and fast paced, but it is more tightly written and better focused than that first novel, which was a New York Times best seller in paperback. A tribute to World War II valor and sacrifice, this suspenseful, above average thriller is recommended for popular fiction collections.--.