A Truth to Lie For: An Elena Standish Novel
It is 1934, and Britain’s MI6 recognizes that something unfathomable is evolving in Germany as they witness the rise of Adolf Hitler. In this fourth Elena Standish novel, the head of MI6 elects to send Elena, the granddaughter of the former head of the agency during WWI, into the jaws of the beast. Her assignment is to bring out of Germany one of two eminent scientists working on germ warfare—or to kill him so that Hitler can’t use him against the Brits and their allies. Clearly MI6 is anticipating how devastating germ warfare could be in Hitler’s hands. Elena, now Ellen, knows Berlin well, speaks the language as a native and has maintained her contacts from an earlier assignment. Can she use her talents and savvy to save Professor Hartwig and protect the world?
Not having read the first three Elena novels, I only experienced here a mature character who lives by her wits and builds on her previous experiences—regrettable, but I’m now incentivized to read the first three books. What I see in Elena is classic Perry: attention to character development and plot, a fine-tuned sense of place and time, and well-crafted secondary characters, Hans in particular. His interactions with the clearly unhinged Hitler are palpably frightening. Well worth the read even as a stand-alone.
