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Title: Thriller-less Thriller
Review: Yikes! A bartender and a young nightclub singer are involved in a Nazi plot in Lisbon ("here's looking at you..."). Throw in the Gestapo, black musicians, a Japanese fixer-diplomat, Admiral Canaris, António de Oliveira Salazar, Reinhard Heydrich, Winston Churchill, Heinrich Himmler, and all that is missing are the Valkyries. But in lieu of opera, Higgins bases the plot on a kidnapping of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. There are two interesting pieces to this thriller-less thriller; the revisionist casting of the Duke as a deep, romantic, wily patriot and the very sympathetic view of SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg. The novel is based on an actual attempt by Schellenberg to convince the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to work for Germany. Higgins is on autopilot with this one with a talky book lacking his usual action.
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