Though it was my second novel, Black Cross was a prequel, not a sequel to Spandau Phoenix, and in my view is far superior to its predecessor in every light. In fact, it is probably my best book. It began, as Spandau Phoenix did, with a fascinating and true-life historical mystery: Why did the Nazis not use poison gas in World War Two? They alone had invented Sarin (and later Soman) deadly nerve gases which are still feared today, and could have used them (as we used the atomic bomb) to tip the balance of power in their direction. Unlike so many Nazi secret weapons, the potential impact of Sarin was well-understood by Hitler, yet he stayed his hand. We know he had no moral scruple about murdering civilians, so. . . what stayed his hand? In Black Cross, I set out to answer that riddle.
In the writing, however, Black Cross became much more than a historical thriller. During the two years I spent researching this subject, I came to understand the Holocaust in a way that pierced me to the quick. Throughout my childhood, my parents, who had served in Germany after the war, had told me stories of what had happened to the Jews and others during the war. We were Christians, not Jews, but my mother told me about the fake “showers,” and the murders of women and children. She seemed to think it very important that I understand what human beings were capable of. She told me that while many couples serving in Germany during this period (the Cold War) used the opportunity to leave their kids with sitters and see the sights of Europe, my mother followed Army instructions to the letter, never letting the cars fuel tank get below the halfway mark, in case the Russians sent their tanks smashing through the Iron Curtain. I think this childhood impression of war and terror was the seed of the quest that Black Cross became for me. This, and the fact that my best friend in high school was a Jewish kid, which made all the “history” very real to me.
I need say more about the Holocaust here, but to young readers, I recommend Holocaust, by Martin Gilbert. Reading that book was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. Anyone who has doubts as to the veracity of accounts of the Jewish experience in WWII should read this book. If it doesn’t silence you, nothing will.
Finally, let me say that while Black Cross deals with very serious themes, it is in the end the story of two men and two women. The two men are a pacifist American doctor and a Jewish “terrorist” from Palestine, thrown together in a mission that will test them in ways that the rest of us can only pray to avoid. The two woman are a Dutch Jew imprisoned in a camp used for testing poison gas on inmates, and a German nurse horrified by the work she is doing every day. I think it’s an often inaccurate cliche when authors talk about their characters coming alive on the page and taking charge of a book. But in Black Cross, that very thing happened. These characters were so strong, and so symbolic of millions of people who had actually lived and experienced these horrors (and feats of heroism) that I felt bound to follow them to their destinies, rather than try to create them out of whole cloth. I can honestly say that everyone who reads Black Cross will take away something of value.
It's odd how death often marks a beginning rather than an end...
When a young Atlanta physician attends the funeral of the grandparents who raised him, he is approached by a silver-haired rabbi who claims to have known his grandfather well. Returning together to the family home, they open his grandfather's safe. There they discover four mysterious objects - the relics of a man haunted by something he did one winter night in 1944 - an act that brought him unparalleled honors, but left wounds in his soul that would never heal. As the story of these secret souvenirs unfolds, the grandson's concept of honor is stretched to the breaking point and his notion of heroism redefined forever.
In January 1944, four people held the fate of the world in their hands. They were not statesmen or generals, but an American doctor, a German nurse, a Zionist killer, and a young Jewish widow.
At the command of Winston Churchill, these four strangers are brought together in a place almost beyond imagination. It is a small SS-run concentration camp serving as the incubator for a weapon of staggering lethality - a weapon U.S. General Omar Bradley later admitted could have wiped out the D-day invasion force on Omaha Beach. What they are forced to do in the name of victory - and survival - demonstrates with terrible clarity that in a world where all is at stake, war has no rules.
Black Cross explodes the myth of World War II as "the Good War." It is a novel of transforming power, in which healer must become destroyer and a young killer is tempered by love into a savior.
Peopled with men and women as compellingly human as the historical figures who manipulate them, Black Cross will pull you into a steadily tightening web of danger and deception that seems impossible to resolve until the explosive final chapters.
Praise for Black Cross
"On fire with suspense...readers will be reminded of Ken Follett."
- Stephen King
"Black Cross runs like a Swiss watch wired to a bundle of dynamite; impeccable craftsmanship ticking inexorably to an explosive conclusion. A wonderful mingling of technology, suspense, and character, and a fine exploration of the true nature of patriotism."
- Diana Gabaldon
"A swift historical thriller of such brutal accomplishment that it vaporizes almost every cliché of the genre. A harrowing wartime ride straight to the century's moral heart of darkness. Good enough to read twice."
- Kirkus Reviews
"A deftly woven roller-coaster drama."
- New York Newsday
"Totally absorbing...will be treasured and admired by and for generations."
- Nelson DeMille
"Extraordinary, intriguing, machine-gun action."
- The Orlando Sentinel