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The Raven Affair by Steven Nedelton Asylett Press
book review by Peter M. Fitzpatrick
"The Second World War is not over. Destabilize and confuse, that's their game. It's the super wealthy, I'm sure. Now they're using America as their battering ram."
A core group of old Nazis have reorganized themselves into a powerful group of industrialists, financiers, and politicians. Our government protects them because they helped us win the Cold War. Now they begin to foment riots and assassinate political opposition in the United States and Europe, in a final bid to seize power. Interpol, Holocaust survivors, and even the Russian SVR (the modern version of the KGB) know who some of them are. This riff on a what-if world of international intrigue and conspiracy allows the author to air some long held suspicions of U.S. government—and even Church—collusion in protecting Nazi criminals. In a tightly woven plot of spies, counterspies, deep cover agents, and sleeper assassins, issues of identity and truth become very convoluted indeed.
The author pulls no punches in describing the horrors and butchery committed by these devotees of Hitler. That they drew in and compromised so many in positions of power time makes this book a welcome antidote to historical forgetfulness, even if it is a work of fiction. The characters are drawn with a careful eye to how easily corruptible we are as a species. Any heroic figures are really just assassins for hire. It is a world driven mostly by greed and power, if not by insane notions of racial purity. There are some good people, but the idols of Church and State (our own) are seriously deconstructed. It is one of Vladimir Putin's spies who comes off as the most idealistic. Hard-bitten realism prevails, which combines well with the suspense and action. It also helps justify this addition to the already huge body of fiction on Nazis. In the end, more realism helps us understand.