W.E.B. Griffin Zero Option (Men at War)
Zero Option is a World War II thriller, the ninth in a series begun by the prolific W.E.B. Griffin. This installment by Peter Kirsanow follows the adventures of OSS operatives Richard Canidy and Eric Fulmar. Set against the historic meeting of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in Tehran in November 1943, the two spies are in a battle of wills with two formidable foes: the German Abwehr spy network and that of the Russian NKVD.
Under “The Genius,” Admiral Canaris, the Germans have sent their top operative, Otto Skorzeny, on a suicide mission to disrupt the Tehran conference by assassinating the Big Three. Skorzeny has never failed in a mission undertaken on behalf of Hitler. He is brilliant, cunning and ruthless. The equally infamous Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s chief executioner, has entrusted the Soviet mission to disrupt the conference to Major Taras Gromov, a brutal assassin whose mission is not only to create havoc but to kill the two Americans, Canidy and Fulmar.
Zero Option pulls all the stops of a typical thriller, with beautiful Icelandic twins whose loyalty blows with the wind and cold killers who will slice a man’s throat as easily as cutting into a piece of steak. The novel has plenty of action, though in a generic seen-it-all-before fashion. There will be more novels in this series featuring Canidy and Fulmar, so we know at the outset that, as much danger as they face, these two will survive. Some actions left me confused. At one point, Canidy is knocked unconscious by someone we can only assume is one of his opponents but regains consciousness in the custody of his friends. How did that happen?
Zero Option will entertain and keep you reading so long as you understand it is part of a series.
