The Eye of the Abyss

In 1938 Nazi Germany Franz Schmidt has a good life. He is happily married to Helga and they have a delightful four year old daughter. He works as the chief internal auditor at Banhaus Wertham & Co. where he is very highly regarded by the Werthan family that owns the bank. Franz feels pretty good about himself also since he stepped in to defend a Jew attacked by Nazis three years ago at the cost of an eye though he swears he holds no grudges against the Nazis.Franz's life changes when the Nazi Party deposits large sums of cash at Banhaus Wertham & Co. with the demand that anyone with the slightest Jewish blood be fired as the law states. Half-Jewish Fraulein Dressler, competent secretary to the bank's general director, will have to be released. Upset over the injustice, Franz decides to help Dressler while plotting to castigate Herr Dietrich, the Nazi mole just put inside the bank. Though the price of being caught could reach his beloved family, inactivity would cost Franz much more.This is an exhilarating historical tale that takes the reader back to a highly volatile and dangerous time to be a freedom lover. The story line is fantastic as it moves rather quickly forward yet provides fully developed characters whose behavior especially reactions during crisis are brilliantly rendered. However, the key to Marshall Browne's tale is Nazi Germany on the brink of World War II that comes so alive. Author of the well written police Inspector Anders tales Mr. Browne's latest work will be on everyone's short list for the genre's best novel of the year.Harriet Klausner

In the foreboding atmosphere of 1938 Germany, Franz Schmidt is a quiet, contented family man, proud of his Teutonic heritage, and chief auditor at Wertheim's, a venerable commercial bank that has just landed a major Nazi Party account. He's also a man who lost an eye three years earlier defending a Jew.As in Australian author Browne's Italian Inspector Anders novels ("Inspector Anders and the Ship of Fools," "The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders") the pace is deliberate, the protagonist deliberating. The tension builds by increments as the enormity of the bank's move into Nazi business becomes clear to the hapless bankers.Nazi functionary Dietrich, attached to the bank, quickly homes in on Lilli Dressler, the director's Jewish secretary. As Jews have been barred from banking, Dietrich arranges to have the Gestapo arrest her. Schmidt and Lilli's boss separately attempt to save her, and when their illegal efforts fail, Dietrich is exultant. Magnanimously sparing the men from prosecution, Dietrich has them where he wants them.In chilling increments it becomes clear that every aspect of privacy - from phone lines to family relationships, personal friendships and private histories - is compromised. Dietrich seems omnipresent. Heartsick, Schmidt's resolution hardens into a daring plan of heroism and revenge.Browne has captured the Nazis' fanatical mania for control, their mastery of detail and intimidation, their paranoia and arrogance. Schmidt's complexities reveal a tangle of motivations, not all of which he understands, or admires in himself. Events build, from the first slow tightening of the noose to a choking breathlessness. A masterful thriller, as intelligent as it is dark.