The Führer's Prophecy (The Reich Trilogy)

Product Information

With a TV adaption of The Counterfeit Candidate now in motion, this is the ideal time to jump into The Reich Trilogy, with the full throttle ending of The Führer’s Prophecy leaving you immensely satisfied yet deliciously hungry for the grand finale. In one particular encounter, the couple are guests of honour at Hitler’s 60th birthday party, where Maria Callas makes a cameo appearance singing an aria from the Fuhrer’s favourite Wagner opera, Rienzi. Later in the story, once Hitler is living In Argentina, we see him interact with two fellow notorious Nazis who we know, really did escape to Patagonia, Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann. One of the chapters covers the audacious abduction of Eichmann by the Israeli secret service, Mossad, in 1960, which was a global news event at the time. In my story, Hitler tries in vain to help Eichmann avoid capture but to no avail.

What if Hitler escaped from Berlin at the end of the war and built a new life, using a false identity and perpetuated his dynasty. How would that singular event change the course of history and impact on the lives of millions of people around the world. I have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. JFK’s assassination, the moon landings, Princess Diana’s car crash, all come to mind. But they don’t come much bigger or more controversial, than the apparent suicides of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun in the Fuhrer’s notorious bunker in war-torn Berlin on 30th April 1945. It’s a highly contentious event that has generated countless books, articles and documentaries and the truth is that, even today, views differ on what really happened. I decided it was essential to try and make this part of the story feel as authentic as possible. So, I weaved into the narrative a number of real-life characters. Early on, we meet Hitler’s support team who were living in wretched conditions inside the infamous bunker. His driver, Erich Kempka, personal valet, Hans Linge, private physician, Thomas Morrell and his long-time chef, Constanze Manziarly. YouTube sets this cookie to measure bandwidth, determining whether the user gets the new or old player interface.

Now, by popular demand, Klein has written a sequel, The Führer’s Prophecy, which forms the second part of the newly labelled ‘Reich Trilogy’, and which is just as, if not more, entertaining than the original entry. For Vargas, stopping Franklin is as much personal as professional. He is still reeling from the loss of his Jewish wife 13 years before, whose grandfather had been one of the hundreds of thousands of Jews forced to flee Nazi Germany. These sections uncover the foundations of the main story, where we learn of Hitler’s speech at the Reichstag in January 1939 announcing his ambition to wipe out the Jewish people, which came to be known as ‘The Führer’s Prophecy’. Potent themes of loyalty, revenge, friendship, and healing – particularly with regards to lead cop Nicolas Vargas – are played out on a world stage.

It’s well recorded that in July,1945, just three months after Hitler’s supposed death, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt at the Potsdam Conference in Germany, where he cast doubt on the official story of the Fuhrer’s death. He astonished the two western leaders by claiming that Hitler had eluded his Red Army, escaped from Berlin and was hiding somewhere in Patagonia. The genie was well and truly out of the bottle and a new conspiracy theory was born.A. My favourite thrillers have great stories and plot twists but are always believable as well as having strong characters. I always knew the idea required two timelines, one following Hitler’s secret, post-war life in Argentina and the other, a contemporary setting for the robbery and the 2012 Presidential campaign. I soon appreciated that in effect I was writing two books and the only way I could make that work, was to write them comletely separately. So, the contemporary story came first and then, when that was complete, I set about writing the story of Hitler’s post-war life in Argentina and his outrageous plan for building a Fourth Reich in the United States. The addictive, punchy plot then moves to the Middle East and Iran, where we meet more ruthless murderous from The Taliban, who are only too willing to join the cause against their bitter Israeli enemy.

Thanks to a team of unscrupulous boffins at his disposal, he has created a super drug that when ingested by women renders them infertile. Senator John Franklin, hailed as the ‘Great Unifier’, secures the Republican Presidential nomination and seems destined for the Oval Office. Despite the sixty-seven year interval and a span of thirteen thousand miles, these events are indelibly linked. That was a key moment as it inspired me to begin the writing process and for the following twelve weeks, I worked ten hours a day, seven days a week and became totally obsessed with the project. The end result was a 90,000 word, first draft. No one was more surprised than me or my wife and daughter who witnessed the entire process unfold. My only escape from constant writing was a daily, late night walk with the family dog, Georgie, a gorgeous Frenchador (yes, a Labrador/French Bulldog combo!), who became my thinking companion, when I wanted to explore plot lines.Martin Bormann is a key figure in the book and the arch manipulator behind the masterplan to land Hitler’s grandson in the White House. They are, though, always one step behind and it will all come down to the wire in a breath-taking showdown pitting Franklin’s forces against the Israeli national intelligence agency, Mossad. As a student, I studied Hitler and the rise and fall of The Third Reich at Queen Mary College, where I completed a degree in History and Modern Politics. I’ve always had a gut feeling that Hitler wasn’t the kind of man to take his own life, but then again, there is a great deal of compelling evidence, and eye-witness testimony, to suggest he did. However, for the purposes of writing The Counterfeit Candidate, I went with my gut. I couldn’t help wondering, “What if….” Dogged police officers Nicholas Vargas of the Buenos Aires Police Department and Troy Hembury, a lieutenant of the LA Police Department, had joined forces to stop Franklin and had, seemingly, closed the case with the apparent death of the disgraced Republican presidential candidate. They are the definitive due you will love to hate, and you’ll be rooting for their comeuppance while cheering on Vargas and Hembury every step of the way.

A. I just want them to be kept on the edge of their seats as they read the novel, and to enjoy it as a work of fiction. It’s no spoiler to reveal that rumours of Franklin’s death have been greatly exaggerated and, in fact, he has been in hiding ever since his fall, biding his time until the moment to strike again arose.Q. There is a TV adaptation of your first novel, The Counterfeit Candidate , currently in the works. How does this make you feel, and would you recommend people read your novel before watching the show, or vice versa?