A solid ⅘ star read.

The Bells of Hell is un-put-downable, with excellent pacing, narrative, and overall worldbuilding. It is a good mixture of grave incidents and threats with just the righta mount of humour and subversion of expectations. The main cast are a likeable bunch and whilst their development isn’t as amazing as I would hope, I think that if we view this as a bit of a pulpy, fast-reading spy story then there isn’t too much to complain about. They do the job.

The writing style and overall book construction are well-handled.

I will definitely be seeking out more works from this author in the future.

Author Michael Kurland (http://www.michaelkurland.com) published the novel “The Bells of Hell ” in 2019. This is the first of his "A Welker & Saboy Thriller " series. Mr. Kurland has published more than 25 novels.

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Situations. The story is set in 1938. The primary characters are OSI Special Agent Jacob Welker and Lord & Lady Saboy. Welker is President Roosevelt’s own covert counter-intelligence agent. Lord Geoffrey Saboy is the British ‘cultural attache’. Both he and his wife have ties to British Intelligence.

The Discovery of the body of a recent arrival from Germany involves Welker. This gets him on the trail of Nazi agents operating in New York City. Both of the Saboy's are on missions of their own for the British government.

Lady Saboy openly flirts with most of the men she meets. She is not above using her looks, as well as her body, to discover hidden secrets. Before long, Welker has recruited the Saboy's to assist in halting an assassination.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 8 hours I spent reading this 256-page WWII era mystery and spy thriller. I like the novels set in this period. I also liked the characters in this novel. They are a little different than those normally found. I look forward to reading more novels in this series. The cover art is a little plain, but it is eye-catching. I give this novel a 5 out of 5.

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The German Bund was more active in the US than most knew (or know) during the 1930s. Otto Lehman was sent to the US to do something (but what?) but was beaten to death almost immediately upon arrival by two mysterious men. Andrew Blake, who is homeless by circumstance, reports what he saw and finds himself enlisted into an operation run by Jacob Welker, who works for President Roosevelt. Also pressed into service are Lord Geoffrey And Lady Patricia Saboy, who work for the British Secret Service. This effort uncovers a variety of German efforts (some of which don't lead anywhere) but the group is able to identify and stop the most dangerous activity. Kurland has packed a lot into a relatively slim volume but it's got a good rhythm and is nicely dotted with tidbits of info you might find yourself researching further. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of historical fiction.

"The Bells of Hell" is a novel set in New York City in 1938. It loosely is a story involving the IOS which is a probable precursor of the OSS in it's own right the organization that became the CIA. War clouds were appearing all over Europe with Hitler turning Germany into a militarized police state. The emphasis by the fuhrer was to set up many groups - Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, Negros and others deemed non Aryan as scapegoats to be ostracized by Germany as unworthy to be members of that society. In addition Germany arranged a plebiscite in Austria to determine if that country would be willing to join in whatever aggressive activities were dictated to them by Hitler.
The situation in New York was that Nazi groups were openly working to push the United States into joining Germany in war against their perceived enemies. They were also working to cast dispersions on any prominent members of the Jewish faith. Mr Kurland is quite vocal in his writing critiquing J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for his stance at the time of the novel on seeing only communists as enemies of the U.S. German bund activities were not important to him.
As the story opens Otto Lehman arriving by ship from Germany is kidnapped as he debarks and killed. Andrew Blake, a homeless man sees the murder and in being questioned indicates that the killers were speaking German. Consequently Jacob Welker who was than president Franklin Roosevelt's own counter-intelligence agent is brought to New York to question Blake. As a result of the talks Welker recruits Andrew Blake as well as lord Geoffrey Saboy who is the cultural attache for Great Britain and his wife Lady Patricia to help him with investigating whatever the Nazis are planning beginning with the murder of Otto Lehman.
The author's style is light, a bit tongue in cheek making the novel an interesting read. It is written well enough to recommend it's reading although not nearly an all night draw. The characters drawn up with the beginnings of an organization such as the CIA in the background are interesting enough to certainly warrant looking for future novels by Michael Kurland.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. There is a lot of action in it, a bit of intrigue and the shifts in location kept me interested. Still, there were other parts where I thought there was a bit too much detail and the boredom of minutia began to take over. I've never been a fan of books that do a lot of overexplaining, especially fiction books.

Still, this had a sort of original, spy-thriller feel to it that was nice and it was well-written for the most part. There is a rather large cast of characters to keep up with, but they are not really similar, so it wasn't too bad sorting out who was who. I think I'd like to read more from this author and see what else he has to offer, as his writing style is interesting and keeps you wanting to see the story he is telling unfold. This would make a good film.

For anyone who enjoys books with a nice mix of action, mystery and adventure, this would be a good place to start.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Historical suspense, set in 1938, against the background of a Nazi plot in New York. The action ranges from New York to Washington to Berlin, following diplomats, government investigators, and a reluctant imbedded agent.

A bit old-fashioned, but quite satisfying.

When Otto Lehman arrives in New York aboard a German ship in New York he is promptly abducted by FBI agents who take him to an abandoned warehouse. However, Lehman is not who is pretends to be and neither are the FBI agents who torture and kill Lehman. This is witnessed by Andrew Blake who reports it to the police. What follows is a classic political spy thriller set in 1938 in which Blake becomes involved as an under-cover agent reporting to someone who reports directly to President Roosevelt. We are also introduced to the British cultural attache, Lord Geoffrey Saboy and his wife Lady Patricia (who both work for British secret service) and offer light-relief in their verbal exchanges and their laid-back attitude to the life of politics and spying, not to say the intricacies of the politesse of the British Aristocracy – very much in the Jeeves and Worcester vein.

Whilst the tone of the book is very light, nevertheless the politics of the rise of the Nazis and the pre-occupation of Hoover with the communists rings loud bells of alarm. I would recommend this if you prefer your spy thrillers not too challenging as the plot holds together well and Geoffrey and Patricia are amusing.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

What a delightful book this is. Set in the 1930s, it is an excellent story which includes many of the aspects of the times and serves, in some ways, as a reminder of what could have happened if the "wrong heads" had succeeded in mollifying Hitler. The language of the book is redolent of my imagination's impression of the cadence of the 30s and I was drawn in from the first page. The characters are well painted, their interactions well choreographed and the events accurately portrayed. Hopefully, the second volume will be along sooner rather than later.

A snappy political spy thriller that packs a lot of historical facts in with the fiction. Set in 1938, the story opens with Otto Lehman's arrival in New York aboard a German ship. But Lehman is not whom he pretends to be and has orders as to what to do when he reaches the city. Before he can do anything, he is detained by two men claiming to be FBI agents, bundled into a car and taken to an abandoned warehouse. There he is tied naked to a chair and tortured. Andrew Blake, a homeless man hiding in the warehouse, sees Lehman beaten to death. Once the killers have left, Blake reports the murder to the police revealing that the men he saw spoke German as did their victim. Blake is recruited by US counter-intelligence agent Jacob Welker who reports directly to US President Franklin Roosevelt.
Meanwhile, we are introduced to Lord Geoffrey Saboy, a British 'cultural attache', and his wife Lady Patricia. Both work for British secret service in the USA and Germany. With Blake's aid, Welker learns that the German American Bund - America's home grown Nazis - is planning an attack which will keep the USA out of involvement in a future war. He co-opts Lord Geoffrey and Lady Patricia into his counter espionage efforts as they endeavour to discover what the Nazis are planning. There are a dozen or so sub plots, some involving other spying operations, throughout the book but these add little to the main story, although they do provide more period detail. The author, Michael Kurland, has done his research and uses real characters and events to push the action along. This seems to be the first in a series featuring Lord Geoffrey and Lady Patricia - a quirky couple from Britain's upper class whose conversations brighten up some of the book's slower passages. Kurland's book can be enjoyed by fans of the spy thriller and historical fiction set in the late 1930's. My thanks to the publishers, Severn House and NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for an unbiased review.