Hitler's Secret – Rory Clements

IT'S autumn 1941 and the Allies discovers a devastating secret about Adolf Hitler that they believe could help them win the war.

Back in the 1930s the fledgling Fuhrer did something he shouldn't, something that if revealed now would ruin his reputation with his fellow Germans.

Hitler's troubleshooter Martin Boorman knows what happened, and he's killing everyone connected with the incident while furthering his own career.

So there's double danger for history professor Tom Wilde when he's sent behind enemy lines to help smuggle a mysterious package out of Nazi Germany.

Wilde is the hero of three previous thrillers from Clements set in the 1930s and 1940s, and this one is not as good as those books, and certainly not as engrossing as Clements' previous series about Elizabethan spy John Shakespeare.

The first half of the book is a cat-and-mouse chase across Nazi-occupied Europe that plods where it should thrill.

The plot thickens when Wilde returns to his wife in England, as previous friends and enemies make appearances, but this is still a by-numbers thriller.

David Knights