The Stettin Secret

by James Stewart Thayer

In the rubble of a ruined city, three men struggle for the ultimate prize of war: survival.

The year is 1947. In the war-ravaged city of Stettin, Poland, a mammoth Nazi aircraft carrier is docked. Its name is Graf Zeppelin, and Stalin wants it. The Americans will do anything to stop him, for with Graf Zeppelin the Russian navy could strike anywhere in the world.

When President Harry Truman discovers that Stalin ordered the aircraft carrier towed to Leningrad, he sets a plan in motion to have the mammoth carrier sunk.

Conflict of interests intersect as American commando Andrew Jay tries to destroy the carrier, Russian master spy and sadist Georgi Bukov wants it for his country’s benefit, and the former Gestapo Agent Ritter Fritsch will want to profit from the chaos any way he can.

More is at stake in war-ravaged Stettin than a desperate play for power that will push these three men to confront the fate that awaits them.

286 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

James Thayer is the son of a wheat farmer, and he was raised in Spokane and the farm country in eastern Washington. He graduated from Washington State University and the University of Chicago Law School, and now teaches novel writing at the University of Washington extension school where in 2015 he received the Excellence in Teaching Award in the Arts, Writing and Humanities. The New York Times Book Review says his "writing is smooth and clear. Deceptively simple, it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm that only confident stylists achieve.” His The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel is a leading manual for fiction writers. Thayer is a member of the Washington State Bar Association and the International Thriller Writers. He and his family live in Seattle.

Reviews

[Lyn Ross]

Easy to read. Engaging story.