Wolf’s
Lair, by Brian Falkner. Katipo Joe series # 3
Junior
Fiction.
Once again, Brian
Falkner takes us all on a dizzying World War Two ride with teen-age spy Joseph
St George, embedded deep within the highest echelons of power at Berchtesgaden,
Hitler’s mountain retreat – indeed, his disguise is so perfect Hitler has made
him his eventual successor, a fact that makes Joe faint-headed to even think
about, and a source of great, ill-concealed resentment from those more
deserving and ambitious. Joe doesn’t
sleep well at night, nor does he relish betraying his fellow Hitler Youth
companions, still filming their propaganda movie with Leni Riefenstahl.
No,
Joe’s life is anything but carefree, and suspense is ratcheted up even more
with Hitler’s plans to invade Russia:
Operation Barbarossa is in full swing, and Der Führer
thinks it would be an excellent idea if, as his successor, Joe and his
companions should travel with him on his armoured train to Wolf’s Lair, his
bunker in East Prussia near the Russian front – he can have a taste of the
front lines and War in all its terrible majesty. Of course they will be perfectly safe, and
Leni should get some good footage of her handsome charges as those miserable
Russians are slaughtered by the invincible power and might of the German Army.
Needless
to say, the reality of Joe’s experiences at the front doesn’t match the rosy
theory; his life is saved more than once
by Sergeant Misch, part of Hitler’s security detail (a real-life soldier whose
photo is in the back of the book!), but worse is to come: Joe’s handler and contact informs him that,
after several botched attempts, it’s time for Joe to Do The Deed: to assassinate Hitler.
And
how does a 15 year-old boy do that?
Desperation can make
heroes of us all, and Joe, with the assistance – knowing and otherwise – of his
friends, concocts a plan. As does
Hitler: what a stroke of genius it would
be (all in a day’s work for the Führer) now that America
has been drawn into the war by Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbour, to send a
bright, handsome boy soundly coached in Americanisms and the American way of
life to be a spy for the Reich. Not only
would Hitler be master of Europe and eventual conqueror of Britain, but he
would hopefully be privy to the inner workings (with luck) of the American War
Machine. Brilliant, as always!
This excellent series is
an ideal way for young teenage
readers to learn of the terrible history of the 20th
century as seen through the eyes of fictional characters they can identify
with, and Mr Falkner is the storyteller to do just that: every fact is authenticated, and the suspense
and horror is spine-chilling: I’m hoping
that Joe’s adventures in America will give us some light relief! FIVE STARS.
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