This book continues the story of agent Dick Canidy's infiltration of Sicily prior to the Allied invasion of the island in 1943. This is the 7th book in Griffin's Men at War series, stories of the WWII Office of Strategic Services. The plot gets involved and becomes pretty much of a page-turner, despite the plodding Griffin style. Meanwhile, von Braun is building the V-1 rockets that Hitler expects to defeat the British, and it turns out one of the Nazi's plans is to stuff them full of poison gas instead of explosives. Despite orders from Eisenhower to the contrary, therefore, Canidy decides to go find out what's happening, and takes along with him a young radio man who suffers from claustrophobia and therefore cannot go by submarine, so they parachute in.

The plot is that Dick Canidy, still ready for derring-do as he and Wild Bill Donovan create the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the forerunner to the CIA, discovers that the radio man he left behind in Palermo to provide information on Axis movements (and who was quite willing to be left behind after seeing the beautiful Andrea, sister to some boatmen who have ties all the way to Lucky Luciano) has been replaced by someone who does not transmit code as well. I have to admit that realization that this is fiction and that therefore the reality of the events did not happen quite this way has a tendency to spoil the story for me, but it was an engrossing read, truly representative of the Griffin style … from frequent tumbles in bed with willing women to the high consideration of fine liquor (in this case Haig & Haig Pinch Scotch Whiskey). A good read-but I often wonder, when I read these accounts of frictional heroes who did things at pivotal points that changed history why some of the actual survivors of those times and battles do not rise up and cry havoc. Griffin started back in 1984 and which his son is continuing. This is the latest (Volume 7) in the Men At War Series, which W.E.B.

The spymasters by web griffin