The Hess Cross

"A rousing spy melodrama . . . for anyone who cannot resist history's 'what might have beens' . . . fine entertainment."
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

As scientists in America and Germany race to develop the atom bomb, the defector Rudolf Hess—third in command of the German government behind only Hitler and Goering when he bizarrely flew to Scotland in 1941—is flown to Chicago to meet America’s leading nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, either about to reveal the secrets of the German bomb project, or as part of an intricate and brutal German plan.

Traces of a German plan are picked up by American OSS agent John Crown. Nazi operatives and ruthless SS commandos are already in Chicago. It is a kidnap plan, and Enrico Fermi is its target. He alone has the knowledge to develop a German bomb, and he will be spirited to Berlin and forced to cooperate.

The kidnap plan will deliver the bomb to Germany and doom to the Allies. Unless John Crown can stop it.

“First class espionage . . .. A great read. . . a dandy what-if plot.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"A super Nazi thriller beyond The Eagle has Landed. . . . Suspenseful."
—Publishers Weekly

“But for the fact that the author assures us this is a work of fiction, it could be a detailed history of the most daring intelligence coup ever attempted. . . . Thayer makes it seem very real.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A fast-moving WWII adventure using a mixture of real and imaginary characters in the style of Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed.”
—Houston Chronicle