Empire and Honor (HONOR BOUND Book 7)

This book is set in Argentina just after World War II ends, as various Nazis flee there from the collapsed Reich. Their way has been paved over the last few years with money smuggled in and bribes paid. They enjoy influence in Argentinian society, as high up as Vice President Juan Peron, who can easily extort money out of them to fund the rising political careers of himself and his girlfriend Eva Duarte.The wartime OSS intelligence service is being wound down, and has not yet been replaced by the CIA, but US spooks face some sensitive choices: how to handle the Gehlen Org, remnants of the Nazis' spy network in Russia and Eastern Europe now seen as a valuable intelligence asset, one the US wants on its side and certainly wants to keep out of the hands of the Russians. And many of them were Nazis or SS.Enter this book's protagonists. Cletus Frade, an American by upbringing but on his father's side now the heir to one of Argentina's most powerful families, is conveniently in place to help the US run a deniable operation resettling the Gehlen Org and their families to Argentina. And his boyhood friend Jimmy Cronley, in the Army's Counterintelligence Corps but lassoed into the OSS in its final days, finds himself with key roles: first, protecting the beautiful-of-course widow tied to two anti-Hitler German military families; then, guarding the Gehlen Org's most valuable files and spiriting them out of Europe when the operation is nearly blown; and, finally, securing a real headache, more than 500 kilos of uranium oxide which the collapsing Reich dispatched by submarine, intended for its Axis ally Japan, but which never got there and may be in Argentina.I enjoyed the political murk of it all. Argentina, a few months before Peron becomes president, is riven by pro-Nazi and anti-Nazi factions. Its current president just wants to avoid a bloody civil war between left and right as took place in Spain. Juan Peron is a pompous megalomaniac but our heroes must protect him, in part because the assassination his opponents plan for him (however much in history's eyes he may have deserved it) might trigger that civil war. Peron's relationship with Eva Duarte, whom Frade and others regard as little better than a young hooker - he marries her during the events of this story - is considered scandalous by many others in the Argentine officer corps, as is his taste for 13 year old girls. Meanwhile Evita is already agitating crowds in the hundreds of thousands for mass rallies and demonstrations. Church politics swirls around in various ways, with the Vatican helping fleeing Nazis for reasons good and bad.The German exiles themselves have many factions among them. There are hardcore Nazis plotting the return of the Reich, as well as officers who plotted against Hitler and now regarded as traitors by the former. There are submariners and pilots not tied to war crimes, and SS officers who engineered them. There are those who are pro-Western and those who merely say they are. Frade must decide who to trust among these who swore personal oaths to Hitler.Even the U.S. has its factions, with one branch of intelligence hiding Germans other branches are looking for, and leaders torn between the conflicting needs of the Occupation - seeking justice from some of history's worst crimes vs. securing Europe against Communism. And those protecting the Gehlens are fully aware there are "Good Gehlens" and "Bad Gehlens."The book whirls with relationships among interlinked American, Argentine and German families of influence - there are a lot of Vons among the latter. I wished for a chart of the web centered on Cletus Frade. It's an enjoyably tangled mess, though. Like some other Griffin books, the action consists disproportionately of rich people acting crusty or cute as they gather in this mansion or that estate for dinner or drinks or talk, with lots and lots of details about the luxury cars they drive, the planes they invariably own, how they'll get from Point A to Point B, and the routines enjoyed by them and their trusty retainers as they all banter with each other.It's one way to solve the exposition problem of spy novels, with an awful lot of intriguing background and maneuvering to cover but not necessarily much action. Much can come out through talk between the characters, and Griffin's world of rich people - Frade, who has recently inherited so many properties in Argentina he doesn't know them all; his grandfather Cletus Howell, a Texas oil millionaire and Truman intimate; Cronley, himself from successful oil people; and various wives and Vons - are given an enjoyable setting in which to talk about it. It does drag at times, though.This is only my third Griffin book - I read two from the currently set Presidential Agent series featuring Charlie Castillo - and am unclear whether any of this is in fact a back story for that, as Castillo has a complicated German-Hispanic-American background as well. I take it from other reviewers, though, that the leisurely pace here is annoying to longtime Griffin readers and a departure from a different style that made him successful.The Gehlen Org has been written about elsewhere, and I'm unclear how much about this move to Argentina, and the U.S. involvement in it, is factual or based on fact (like the role of a super plenipotentiary partly-American gazillionaire and operative.) Secretly allying with former Nazis while others were trying to hunt them down and try them was at the very least controversial, but the kind of thing the early CIA had to consider as it regrouped for the Cold War with a wartime ally now become the enemy. There are those who consider the Gehlen Org a complete failure, never yielding the promised influence in the East and in fact permeated with Soviet double-agents, the worst among them easily blackmailed by the Russians. It's unclear in this book what exactly their value is: whether the West wants to use them in intelligence going forward; have them around to interpret captured files; or do nothing with them but keep them out of Russian hands. It was also unclear to me their wartime political slant: they are referred to frequently as Abwehr Ost, or the Eastern branch of the Germany's foreign intelligence. Under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris this was a less-Nazified service and involved in pro-Western and anti-Hitler intrigue to some extent. Do we assume the Gehlen Org members reflect that? But elsewhere it's noted they were mostly Nazis and SS.And there is, of course, popular fiction's profusion of Germans who notably participated in Von Stauffenberg's assassination plot. I wish there had been as many anti-Hitler Germans in reality as there currently are in fiction.

As usual an amazing read, you pick up the book and start reading and before you know it you are way into the story and hours pass and you just can’t stop reading… you are hereby warned.

It is October, 1945. The OSS has been disbanded. But, for Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS, the fight goes on.After the end of the war, the United States made a deal with General Reinhard Gehlen, the head of German intelligence's Soviet section. In return for a treasure trove of intelligence on the Soviets and their spies within the US atomic bomb program, Gehlen's people would be spirited to safety in Argentina.Only a handful of people knew about the deal. If word got out, all hell would break loos. And the US would lose some of the most valuable intelligence sources they possessed. It was up to Frade and company to keep them safe.But some people, such as former members of the SS (Gestapo), had other ideas. These ideas included, but were not limited to:Killing the soon to be President of Argentina to start a civil war.Killing some of Gehlen's people, the "Good Gehlens", who were against the Nazi regime and just wanted to live a peaceful life in Argentina.Killing the CIC agents (Counter Intelligence Core), that had replaced the OSS, that had been eliminated after the end of the war. (The CIC had then been replaced by the CIA), especially Cletus Frade,who were transporting the Good Gehlens to Argentina.And killing, or, failing that, preventing CIC agents from finding a Nazi submarine, the U-234, that contained a large amount of uranium oxide that the Nazis had contracted to sell to the Soviet Union.This novel is very exciting. In parts.There are many, many detrimental factors that will distract the reader and will require lengthy skimming to find content.These are, but not limited to:Too many extended descriptions of mundane activities and events.Way too much use of first and last names and titles:Among the very formal SS officers, andAmong and between Argentinians, good Gehlens and CIC agents.WAY too many lengthy, introspective thoughts, by several CIC agents about subjects too numerous to be detailed here.Way too many boring wisecracks between and among the "Good Guys".Fortunately, the skimming of all these detrimental factors, and quickly, will still provide readers with a very good novel to read.

Another great book in the continuing saga. It was made more interesting in that the background story of Nazis in Argentina has/is the subject of a current investigation, according to a news item on TV.

Keep them coming, I have been buying books by this author for the last 20 years since my Dad stumbled across the author in America. Thank you Amazon for providing me with the means to keep on buying and giving Dad a gift each year which is always received with much pleasure.

I liked the book as usual. I am a Griffin fan and have only been disappointed once when he re-invented and applied to American Know-how, the British "Man who never was". There is still room for a sequel with Peron.

WEB Griffin always delivers vthe goods, I think it is terrible that libraries never have any of his books in. This one continues a good, wll written series that is agreat.

I wish all of WEB Griffin's books were available in the UK on Kindle. They are usually well-researched and compelling reading - especially this series and The Corps