No Dawn for Men: A Novel of Ian Fleming, J.R.R. Tolkien
and Nazi Germany. James LePore and
Carlos Davis. The Story Plant. December 2013. 272 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 978161188073.
On
the fields of battle during WWI, two men meet, one a wounded soldier lying
under a dying horse and the other a good man stopping to help but unable to do
so. Years later in 1938 in Nazi Germany
the son of the wounded soldier, Ian Fleming, meets with the notable author of The Hobbit, Professor Tolkien, to seek
an artifact that Adolph Hitler intends to use for his usual nefarious
purposes. This cannot happen as it could
mean the end of the world as we now know it.
And so the thriller begins; but remember, what is a thrilling read to us
is a matter of life and death to Fleming, Tolkien, Professor Shroeder and his
daughter Billy and MI-6 Agent Arlen Cavanagh. Can the dead be brought back to
life? Who must die to prove that reality?
Tolkien
is approached by his former student, Cavanagh, who asks him to interpret a Satanic
invocation for raising the dead. Within
days, he has agreed to head to Berlin in the early days preceding WWII. Hitler has placed his henchmen in place
before he begins his master plan of conquering Europe with a formidable
military force. Hitler’s Aryan policies
are beginning to be implemented, with a special hatred toward Jews and dwarfs
during the telling of this story. What
exactly do the SS men who are following Shroeder everywhere want from him. Shroeder knows of an amulet and parchment
with a secret spell; he’s actually seen that it works but that it will kill
whoever attempts to use it, so powerful is its mystical force. The Germans want it as well and have given
Shroeder three days to find it and turn it over or else!
Billie,
Schroeder’s daughter, seems oblivious to the looming threat. She is a straight-forward character, it
seems, who says she hates the Nazis but is also actually dating a German
soldier. She quite simply doesn’t
realize the inherent danger of her father’s invitation to Berlin to cooperate
with the German leaders. When she meets
Arlen Cavanagh, it seems she is so blasé about everything that no one suspects
she could be anything other than tremendous to her scholarly father, Schroeder.
A
harrowing tale begins with the necessity of escaping Germany, but this journey
is not going to be an easy one and there are dangers lurking in and around
every corner of their meager existence. Horrific bestial moments serve as
entertainment for German officers; a symbol of the terror they are to carry out
in country after country across Europe! Oh
yes, the reader can predict to a certain degree on the effect of this now
hidden artifact and how an escape will probably occur; but the ending is so,
so, so stunning that it will leave you dazed for minutes, perhaps even
hours. No Dawn for Men again proves James LePore to be a superb crafter of
thriller novels. The action is
relentless, the characters are stereotypical but move at all the right times
and places, increasing the tension to a degree with no appropriate descriptive
word but most assuredly there and very, very real! Also recommended for lovers of historical
fiction authors and those who perhaps could not speak of the wrongdoing behind
them but certainly have decided not to let that travesty happen again! Highly,
highly recommended!
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