Another great blend of historical fiction and nonfiction novel! Highly recommend it to fans of the genre and those looking to expand their reading circle. Purchasing for library.

Over two nights in 1941, March 13 and 14, the Glasgow neighborhood of Clydebank was mercilessly bombed. The official count was ten thousand homes destroyed, 35,000 people left homeless, and 528 people killed. The unofficial count was higher. This was tragedy enough. But something really sinister was going on. The bombers on the second night specifically targeted those areas they has missed on the first raid. There was no way the German Air Force command so quickly could have found out what buildings were still intact UNLESS an agent on the ground in Clydebank radioed the information.

It was up to Major George Maclean and Sergeant Danny Inglis, members of Military Intelligence, to ferret out the traitor or German spy. Immediate suspicion fell on certain members of the Irish community whose loyalty may have been toward their own homeland, still bitter about the division of the country and neutral in the war. Calling in favors, Maclean and Inglis seem to have a few good leads until their informants are murdered. And the only people who even know about the dead men being questioned besides the detectives themselves are very high up the command chain. Their traitor was one of their own and an important, trusted individual.

Following another tip, Maclean and Inglis focus on two Irish men who may have been hired to beat their second informer to death. Apprehended trying to board a ship, MacSherry is critically wounded but his partner Duthie manages to escape. When the detectives interview MacSherry he reveals the fact that there is a traitor high in the military who is named Chrysalis by his German contacts.

However, another case suddenly appears and has to be given top priority by the authorities. A small plane from the continent landed in a field and the pilot claimed he was Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy. Mclean and Inglis have to babysit the man until, if he is the man he claims to be, Whitehall will decide what to do with him. Soon there are clues that maybe someone does not necessarily want Hess, now positively identified, to meet with the Churchill’s men. And only a person high up the command ladder would know, at this stage, about Hess.

Could the two cases be related? Could Chrysalis and the missing Duthie have killed the dectectives’ informers and is Chrysalis now trying to get rid of Hess?

Who is the turncoat those actions destroyed Clydebank and may be poised to destroy Hess and anyone who knows he is in Scotland?

You’ll have to read this exceptional historical mystery to find out. You won’t be sorry.