NIGHT OF THE FOX

by Jack Higgins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 14, 1986

An American soldíer who knows the D-Day plan may fall into Nazi hands! Rommel is plotting to assassinate Hitler! A super-spy for the Allies daringly poses as a Standartenfuhrer! No, veteran Higgins (The Eagle Has Landed, etc.) will win no points for originality with his shameless recycling of familiar WW II espionage premises. But, if thoroughly predictable, this is a tidy, lively, likable melodrama--starting in April 1944 when Col. Hugh Kelso washes up, legs broken, on the German-occupied isle of Jersey after a skirmish at sea. Kelso is harbored by a gutsy pair of anti-Nazi islanders--but it's only a matter of time before the Germans grab Kelso, an engineer who knows all the D-Day invasion secrets! Obviously, then, someone must rescue Kelso from Jersey--and that someone will be flinty, aging super-agent Harry Martineau, nervily posing as a Himmler aide, assisted by plucky young Sarah Drayton (posing as the SS-man's French whore). All goes pretty much as planned, despite a few violent detours. . .until the spy-duo learns that Field Marshal Rommel is arriving to inspect the Jersey troops! Will Rommel's presence undermine the masquerade mission? Not really: because, as the reader knows (and as Harry soon learns, by creaky happenstance), this Rommel is a phony--a double being used to distract from the real Rommel's anti-Hitler maneuvers. So eventually Harry and Sarah (falling in love, of course) do manage to get Kelso off the island, in an airlift/air-chase--with assists from an Italian officer (who worships Sarah) and from the Rommel imposter (a Jewish actor who becomes a reluctant hero). Despite some silly murmurings from brooding master-spy Martineau (""I'm a very existentialist person""), Higgins avoids the shrill soap-operatics that have marred Ken Follett's recent efforts. Instead, he's content with the old-fashioned formula--solid action, heartwarming good-guys, loathsome bad-guys--and his readership will probably be content too, if less than thrilled or compelled.

Pub Date: Jan. 14, 1986

ISBN: 1453211454

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1986

Categories: FICTION