THE WOLF ISLAND CLUB

A newly minted celebrity journalist tries to expose a secret American society with roots in a “far-fetched” World War II–era Nazi spy ring in this debut novel.

“OK, well, brace yourself, because it’s about to get really weird.” This caution from professor Andreas Berlin to TV reporter Alexandra Wilde is an understatement. He is filling in his adopted daughter about the Wolf Island Club, a much-whispered-about “elite club…that knows things and makes things happen behind the scenes that others can’t fathom.” Never mind the bit about these “very powerful individuals” who conduct ceremonies where they toast and drink from the actual skull of Blackbeard. Their insidious plot involves fungus spores that rogue Nazis brought to the South’s coastal waters and swamplands, where they could be cultivated, reproduced, and turned into Perceptalin, a drug with which they plan to manipulate minds. The modern-day incarnation of this club has cultivated and cornered the market of Perceptacoin, an exclusive, limited currency that is “of inestimable worth to certain people.” Wilde learns that her family has connections to the conspiracy. Her grandfather, working undercover as a bartender, monitored German spies who had infiltrated America. These spies, using Nazi gold, seeded what would become the shadowy Wolfheinzer Organization. Wilde will learn that “there was a lot more to this Wolf Island Club than she had ever realized.” There is a lot to unpack in Drake’s series opener; much of it strains credulity. A journalist wishing to infiltrate a shadowy organization wouldn’t tell people that she wants to televise a story about it. And she certainly wouldn’t inform people who are apparently members of the group, as signified by a signature wolf tattoo. But one thing this book is not is predictable. Among the intriguing “wait, what?” characters is Wilde’s long-distance love interest, superstar baseball player William Blake, “a Renaissance man and adventurer extraordinaire” with an exotic and mysterious past. This novel turns out to be a brisk beach read.

A surprising but over-the-top thriller for fans of Nazi conspiracy tales.