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Summary and Reviews of The Soldier Spies by W.E.B. Griffin

The Soldier Spies by W.E.B. Griffin

The Soldier Spies

Men At War, Book 3

by W.E.B. Griffin
  • Critics' Consensus:
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  • First Published:
  • Jun 1, 1999, 340 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2000, 432 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

It's November 1942. War is raging in Europe. The invasion of North Africa has begun. In Washington, OSS chief William J. Donovan finds himself fighting a rear-guard battle against an unexpected enemy: the rival intelligence chiefs back home.

Griffin's fans did indeed cheer the rediscovery of his Men at War series, his epic of espionage and battle originally published under the pen name Alex Baldwin and never before available in hardcover. Said Kirkus Reviews, "This is shrewd, sharp, rousing entertainment."

As The Soldier Spies opens, it is November 1942. War is raging in Europe. The invasion of North Africa has begun. In Washington, OSS chief William J. Donovan finds himself fighting a rear-guard battle against an unexpected enemy: the rival intelligence chiefs back home. In Morocco, Second Lieutenant Eric Fulmar waits in the desert for a car containing two top-level defectors--or will it be full of SS men instead? In England, Major Richard Canidy gets the mission of his life: to penetrate into the heart of Germany and bring out the man with the secret of the jet engine, before the Germans grab hold of him first. The only hope? An experimental pilotless flying bomb. Or at least that's what a lieutenant named Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., thinks....


Everywhere adventure crackles, fueled by the narrative realism, rich characters, and that special flair for the military heart and mind that have always made Griffin's novels so popular. The Soldier Spies is further proof that "Griffin rates among the best storytellers in any genre" (Phoenix Gazette).

Chapter One

Marburg an der Lahn, Germany 8 November 1942

On the night of November 7, Obersturmführer-SS-SD Wilhelm Peis, a tall, pale, blond man of twenty-eight, who was the senior Sicherheitsdienst (SS Security Service) officer in Marburg an der Lahn, received the following message by Teletype from Berlin:

YOU WILL PLEASE TAKE ALL NECESSARY STEPS TO ENSURE THE SECURITY OF REICHSMINISTER ALBERT SPEER AND A PERSONAL STAFF OF FOUR WHO WILL MAKE AN UNPUBLICIZED VISIT TO THE FULMAR ELEKTRISCHES WERK AT MARBURG 8 NOVEMBER. THE REICHSMINISTER WILL ARRIVE BY PRIVATE TRAIN AT 10:15 AND DEPART IN THE SAME MANNER AT APPROXIMATELY 15:45.

The message from Berlin seemed more or less routine to Peis, and he at first treated it as such until early in the morning of the eighth when Gauleiter Karl-Heinz Schroeder--in a state somewhere between chagrin and panic--burst into Peis's sleeping quarters (Peis was not in fact asleep) and ...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Kirkus Reviews
First hardcover printing of the third volume of the Men at War trilogy, begun with The Last Heroes (1997) and The Secret Warriors (1999), both rousingly well received reprints of soft cover originals published under the pseudonym Alex Baldwin. The Last Heroes tells of Wild Bill Donovan's newly formed Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and how it learns about uranium ore in the Belgian Congo, vital to building the atomic bomb.......Since this episode ends in January 1943, there may be still further adventures with the OSS. In any event despite vast detail and readers likely familiarity with the OSS Griffin's plot stays hot and moves at quicksilver speed.

Publishers Weekly
Anachronisms in speech further mar the story, but after one gets past the multiple PG-13-rated sex scenes and hackneyed plot, there are suspenseful scenes of subterfuge and derring-do. Unfortunately for those who didn't read the previous volumes and who may miss the next, this book stops rather than concludes, leaving many painstakingly embroidered subplots unresolved.

Author Blurb Tom Clancy
A storyteller in the grand tradition, probably the best man around for describing the military community.

Reader Reviews

TC Smith

A real page turner ... requires supreme willpower to put down. One of the few action/spy novels that don't make you always aware your reasding an action spy novel. I found myself transported into the world that Griffin creates. A nice balance of ...   Read More

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