The year is 1944, and it is becoming ever more obvious to German leadership that it is only a matter of time before their beloved country loses the war. Top Nazi officials are hellbent on ensuring that their ideology will persist—even if they personally won’t survive the final days of conflict. As the regime teeters towards collapse, dedicated fascist Walter Muller is recruited for a special mission. He is ordered to travel to the USA, infiltrate top American scientific institutes, and learn the new and rapidly evolving science of DNA. Muller must discover how to modify molecules to create new organisms, engineer a bio weapon, and usher in a new age of modern eugenics. Almost a decade before Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA structure in 1953, the Nazis know that this will be a plot many years in the making—but they are staking their hopes on Muller’s work ultimately fueling the rise of the Fourth Reich. Muller takes on a new identity, travels via U-boat to the coast of Maine while covering his tracks behind him—and shortly disappears into American society.
THE THIRD MAN is the seventh book in Geoffrey M. Cooper’s thriller series starring Brad Parker and Lieutenant Karen Richmond, following the Maine couple as they piece together clues to solve this decades-old cold case after an intriguing tip-off. Don’t worry if you haven’t read any of the previous stories; this book is easy enough to follow for those who haven’t read Parker and Richmond’s previous exploits.
The novel weaves together the tale of Muller’s plots and the heroes’ investigation of his crimes in the modern day. It moves from Parker’s first-person account of the case to third-person narration of Muller’s perspective as he enters his new life and joins forces with the equally repulsive, zealously fascist Catherine Freeman. A deadly female sleeper agent, lab scientist, and mouse geneticist, Freeman is just as dedicated as Muller to the Nazi agenda. Obsessed with genetic engineering, she plots to use her scientific skills to help create an Aryan super-race—conspiring to create a lethal pathogen and perform horrific human experiments.
Cooper has written several medical novels, informed by his experience as a former cancer researcher and scientific administrator. His extensive knowledge and passion for the sciences is clear from his writing, and he draws on some of the most significant scientific discoveries of the last 70 years as inspiration for his plot. But don’t be put off by the quantity of academic information at the heart of the book; it is still an accessible and enjoyable novel, thanks to Cooper’s careful balancing of scientific intrigue and human interest.
THE THIRD MAN, Geoffrey M. Cooper’s latest installment in his thriller series starring Brad Parker and Karen Richmond, is a fun, fast-paced medical mystery that adeptly balances scientific intrigue and human drama.
~Emily Jessica Turner for IndieReader