LION, TIGER, BEAR

A fantastical historical novel set during World War II.

Warner follows up his previous work, Little Anton (2019), with a new story of wartime escapades. The action begins in Washington, D.C., in 1942, and President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have a lot on their plates. Nazi Gen. Erwin Rommel’s tank battalions may soon threaten the Suez Canal in North Africa; there’s all sorts of “whiz-bang science in the works” throughout the world, and something strange that happened in the air over Los Angeles recently may have involved “non-Earthly and therefore interplanetary” aircraft. Leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt may be “top-shelf Freemasons,” as the latter puts it, but it doesn’t mean they know everything that’s going on. That’s where secret agents like Bernie Rodgers come in. Bernie, a self-proclaimed “switch-hitting mystic gadfly,” is a peppy American who’s as much at home extracting information from Rudolf Hess as he is breaking up an occult blood-drinking ceremony in Portugal. He’s sent to investigate what the Germans may be up to in remote locations such as Iraq and Antarctica. Along the way, Bernie’s companions include a Malian sergeant named Gwafa, an unflappable adventurer named Alice (“as in Wonderland”), and Churchill’s own “hard-drinking, randy, always-on-report, irreverent Godless libertine” grandniece, Bea. Bea and Gwafa met behind enemy lines in Egypt, where they managed not only to survive, but also commandeer a Porsche Tiger Panzer VK 45.01P tank. Little did they realize their ordeal in the desert was merely the beginning of their adventure.

This wild story of wartime interests only manages to get wilder as it goes on. Everything from occultist Aleister Crowley to Atlantean technology manages to play a role in this free-roaming tale, which goes far beyond what one might find in standard history books. Whether the reader buys into certain ideas, such as that ancient Egyptian pyramids were actually used as power stations, the narrative as a whole offers them much to consider—and it does so in a rapid-fire fashion. No sooner are Bea and Gwafa rescued (after nearly being executed) by a British desert raid and reconnaissance group than events turn to scenes in a remarkably comfortable Cairo, followed by a crash course in anti-gravity and propulsion. Some bits of the story feel a little slapdash, however, as in a lengthy discussion that includes a casual mention of how the night sky once held an artificial crystal moon, without any elaboration. For those who are unversed in such esoteric beliefs, some of the book’s conversations can be perplexing; for instance, what are the “Thule, Vril, and Ahnenerbe societies”? Still, such material is successfully held together by scenes of action. The book also offers plenty of tidbits to keeps readers’ interest, thanks in part to the constant presence of real historical figures in the narrative, such as German explorer Ernst Schäfer and U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Rico Botta, about whom, oddly enough, the author says he could find little historical information.

A rip-roaring, if sometimes overly obscure, wartime tale.