Haven’t done a book review in awhile and I’m happy to bring you a good one. This one is right up my alley and I devoured every page of it.
Title: The Parsifal Pursuit
Authors: Michael and Patrick McMenamin
Published in 2011
This book is number two in the Winston Churchill Thrillers
What’s it about:
By the spring of 1931 a conspiracy is underway in Germany to assassinate President Hindenburg and restore the Kaiser’s son to the throne, threatening the peace of Europe. At the behest of her godfather Winston Churchill, the adventurous journalist Mattie McGary, a rising star in William Randolph Hearst’s press empire, and her lover, Bourke Cockran Jr., a New York law school professor and former Army counterintelligence agent, get involved.
A brutal struggle opposes the old Germany and the new; the reactionary industrialists backing Kaiser Wilhelm II versus the racist radicals behind the Nazis and their leader, Adolf Hitler. Winston Churchill is drawn into the fray.
An epic quest to recover an ancient Christian artifact, the Spear of Destiny, is underway! The spear was used by Roman centurion Longinus to pierce the side of Christ to end His suffering on the cross. But the spear—long on display at Vienna’s Hofburg Museum—is suddenly missing. Hitler wants it every bit as much as the Kaiser and Winston Churchill.
Mattie travels to the Austrian Alps on a danger-filled search for the spear. When Cockran joins her, both their lives and their romance are in jeopardy because of the handsome and mysterious leader of her expedition who saves her life and seeks to seduce her. Will she find the spear and retain Cockran’s love?
My Thoughts:
This book is right up my alley. I usually prefer a good true crime or historical non-fiction. Every once in awhile I’ll pick up a historical fiction in the hopes it will satisfy my weird “I miss school” sometimes feeling. I really enjoyed this book. The characters were interesting and I ended up wanting to know more. It drew me in with its excitement and intensity. The history, the inclusion of Hitler and Churchill, and everything that went wtih 1930s America and Germany was so great. I think the authors did a great job of casually including that. When I first began reading it and realized that they were going to include Hitler in it, I got to admit I was a little taken aback. I was kinda wondering how that was going to work and how I would feel reading it in such a casual way. But it was done well, with tact and historical integrity. That is perhaps what I loved most about the book. The authors clearly know what they are talking about, and great time and care was taken to weave these created characters in with a real time and place. To put them side by side with real people in a real time.
The characters of Mattie and Cochran I just loved. I loved that Mattie was strong and a real heroine. She’s strong-willed and independent. Cochran was a guy I could love.
The story was interesting and kept me intrigued and I definitely want to continue reading the series, and now I got to go back and read the first one.
This book definitely gets the Cammo Style Love Combat Boot stamp of approval. And i would recommend this book to someone that I know liked this type of book. It seems like a niche type of book and it might be hard for someone not interested in this era or in a strong historical book.
4/5 Stars
If you are interested in learning more about this book you can check out the website here.
Disclosure: I received this book in a partnership with Business 2 Blogger. I received a copy of this book, but the was not paid for a positive review. These opinions are my own.
