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Time Reich

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What if your father lied about what he did in World War II? What if he was actually a war criminal? History professor Bram McCoy always believed his German father's story about being held in a concentration camp for refusing to work as an engineer for the Third Reich. He even wrote a best-selling book about it. But that story begins to unravel when he is called upon to help U.S. Justice Department Special Agent Kate Crockett solve a series of unusual murders related to war crimes in World War II. What Bram and Kate discover will make them question everything they know about the final days of the Third Reich. The key to solving the murders lies in Bram's past and his father's journals. Together, they must stop a killer before he can harness the energy of an increasingly right-wing Europe. The future is at stake, and time is not on their side.

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

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About the author

David Healey

130 books96 followers
David Healey made his publishing debut with SHARPSHOOTER, a what-if historical thriller about an attempt to assassinate Union General Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War, published by an imprint of Penguin Putnam. That novel was the result of years of research into the Civil War that included time as a reenactor at Gettysburg and other battlefields.

In its review, the Civil War News wrote: “SHARPSHOOTER has the feel of a techno-thriller, the kind offered by Tom Clancy or Dean Koontz ... SHARPSHOOTER moves quickly and is filled with all manner of intrigue."

Healey has brought that same passion for research and history to his World War II novels, GHOST SNIPER, ARDENNES SNIPER, and RED SNIPER. During a 21-year career as a journalist, he was fortunate enough to interview many veterans of the 29th Division who landed at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Some of the events and characters in these novels were inspired by their stories.

He loves the idea of a character like Micajah Cole, a self-reliant backwoods hunter who turns out to be unrelenting and ruthless as a sniper, especially against a skilled adversary, in the pages of these books.

In addition to fiction, he has written books on regional history, including 1812: REDISCOVERING CHESAPEAKE BAY'S FORGOTTEN WAR and GREAT STORMS OF THE CHESAPEAKE.

A graduate of Washington College and the Stonecoast MFA program, he was recognized in 2011 as a Chaney Scholar in history by St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Visit him online at www.davidhealeyauthor.com or follow him at Facebook at facebook.com/david.healey.books

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Charles  van Buren.
1,924 reviews316 followers
July 7, 2016
This review is from: Time Reich: A World War II Novel (Kindle Edition)

Poorly written and not a World War II novel

This book suffers from poor editing, stereotyping, preudice, & careless and/or lazy writing and research. Perhaps this should come as no surprise as the author was a journalist. Here are a few examples:

"Nan had a frank manner that I liked, looking right at me when she spoke. I knew from experience that meant she had nothing to hide." Really? I wish I had known that when I was an investigator. Seriously, if Mr. Healey really believes that a person looking right at him means that person has nothing to hide, then he is, at best, incredibly naive. He certainly knows very little about interview and interrogation.

Then there is this outrageous example of prejudice and foolishness: "There was also an oddly Southern flavor to the place. "We serve grits" a sign in a diner window had noted. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen so many Confederate flags and pickup trucks. Now I had seen swastikas as well. The more I thought about it, the more North Bay seemed like a good place for a Nazi to hide." The only swastikas he saw in North Bay were those in a hidden room kept by a Nazi war criminal and former member of the SS. How's that for sterotyping and exhibiting prejudice? Grits, pickup trucks and Southern mean Nazi sympathizers.

"The interior (of the North Bay Police Department) was neat and sterile, full of echoes from the expanses of glass, steel and tile floors. Many of the cops had shaved heads, and I had a disconcerting image of them shouting "Ja vol!" and goose-stepping down the hallways when none of the civilians was around. In most police agencies, the days of kindly Officer Malarkey walking the beat were long gone. Now, the ranks of small-town police were often filled with paramilitary types who subscribed to Guns & Ammo magazine." If you don't see what's wrong with this other than misspelling jawohl, I don't think any comment from me will help.

"Apparently he's not much on the whole idea of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice." 'I have to admit he sort of has a point. Why are we chasing down old Nazis who are just going to be dead soon enough?" In the book this statement and question are made by Kate who has passionately devoted her career to apprehending Nazi war criminals. Apparently Mr. Healey threw this in so that he could answer the question. He couldn't be bothered to have a more appropriate character ask it.

How did these Nazis get into the U.S.? "Working in their favor had been the fact that back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, our immigration officials had not been all that vigilant. Besides, we were suddenly more worried about communists than Nazis, one bogeyman replaced by another at the outset of the Cold War." A bogeyman is a fictitious monster or threat. Communists and Nazis are real.

"I often liked to pretend that I was a first time visitor to the United States... What would be my impression of America? Massive highways, gas-guzzling SUVs, litter-strewn roadsides, swampy winter fields beyond, tract housing, gloomy warehouses. Hardly encouraging sights." All right! We can fix those things! Forget the environment, let's drain those swamps. We can also tear down those warehouses and stop building highways and housing. (He does have a point about the roadside litter. Maybe we should start jailing litterbugs or at least suspending their drivers' licenses.) I can only guess what Mr. Healey would do with people who drive SUV's.

"You know, in my opinion as someone of the Hebrew persuasion, we should have dropped the nuke on Berlin, not Hiroshima. But we wouldn't do that because the Germans were too much like us. So we went after the yellow people." On that note, he went back to his post out front." This sentiment is expressed in more than one place in the book. In fact many of the people working on the bomb project were doing so to drop it on Germany. When GERMANY SURRENDERED BEFORE THE BOMB WAS READY, some of them did not want to continue with the project. The truth is that we dropped the bomb on Japan because Germany had already surrendered, Japan would not surrender and the projected allied and JAPANESE casualties resulting from an invasion were in the millions.

These ae just a few samples. There are also factual errors such as an iron cross being worn at the throat, an ordinary original Nazi German flag being worth $20,000, and a genuine Confederate sword selling for a mere $2000. There are strange adjectives and descriptions such as swarming shards of glass. rubber wires and a sticky smell. There are continuity errors such as Kate calling the bronze disk a beacon long before she could have known that. These examples are by no means exhaustive.

Based upon Mr. Healey's biographical information, he should be a real humdinger of a writer. Instead, he is a humbug.
Profile Image for Eric Birk.
Author 1 book71 followers
August 29, 2012
Time Reich was my second David Healey book. I read the e-book version, and again, was very impressed.
The story started out with a fantastical hypothesis that Hitler and all high ranking Nazis escaped capture in a time machine. Then, murders start being committed around the United States by men in SS uniforms. The main character, which is a famous modern day war historian and author, is hired as an advisor by the OSI to look into what could possibly be going on. At the same time he is soul searching for answers to questions he still has about his Holocaust survivor dad, who has since passed away.

The book gets off to a fairly quick start and keeps the action up at fairly decent intervals. At first there are many mysteries for the reader, but as the story progresses, it becomes more and more believable.

As they investigate each of the murders they start discovering that all of the victims were former SS officers and their uniformed attacker seems to be desperately hunting something that the victims may have.

The main character and his female OSI counterpart, who share a growing sexual tension as the story goes on, travel the Country and the World on their quest for answers.

As many questions that get raised during the excitement, the author does a very nice job of tying them all together in the end; in a very believable and down to earth culmination.

In all, it was very hard to put down and I read it in about four or five sittings. It was like a movie that keeps you up past when you know you should go to sleep, but you are dying to see what happens next.
Profile Image for Mandy Walkden-Brown.
662 reviews31 followers
July 20, 2024
Not the best.

It’s a little hard to enjoy a book when one finds the main character to be a rather repulsive predatory creep. I do wish I didn’t always feel compelled to finish a book despite how much it might be irritating me.

Mediocre read that had a promising premise but whose characters left a lot to be desired. Wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re really desperate.
620 reviews12 followers
July 3, 2026
Have you ever come across a book cover and think "hmmmm....". And that is how another book got added to my TBR pile.

This is just such a book, written by David Heatley, title "Time Reich" (according to Goodreads, was published in 2009 - but according to the credits on the inside cover, was copyrighted in 2012).
The premise of this book is what would you do when you find out that your family history is a complete fabrication? When a history professor, Abraham McCoy, begins to discover this reality when he stumbles upon a series of unusual murders in North Bay, MD - a quaint vacation community located on the shores of the upper Chesapeake Bay.

This novel is a historical thriller that revolves evolving around a complex Nazi mystery that spans decades and continents, blending World War II history with suspenseful investigation and personal revelation. The novel explores the pursuit of Nazi war criminals through a web of secrets, hidden Nazi relics, and a sinister time travel project called "Time Reich."

Project: Time Reich is a Nazi research program that saw its formation in the latter years of World War II that involved physicists working on experimental machines that would allow individuals to be sent through time with the intention of either altering or escaping history.
While this is a work of fiction, some of the information contained within seems to draw upon Nazi fascination with the occult and pseudo-sciences, such as time travel. However, in reality, the entire idea of a "Nazi time travel fascination " is a modern pop-culture myth born out of post-war conspiracy theories, sci-fi tropes, and revisionist fiction.

The primary source of Nazi time travel comes from Die Glocke, a purported secret Wunderwaffe (Wonder Weapon) developed in the 1940s. Rumours of this device have persisted for decades after WW2 have persisted for decades after WW2 and were used as a plot trope in the fiction novel Lightning by Dean Koontz (1988) and in the fiction television series 12 Monkeys (Season 4). First fully described by Polish journalist and author Igor Witkowski in Prawda o Wunderwaffe (2000), it was later popularized by military journalist and author Nick Cook, who associated it with Nazi occultism, antigravity, and free energy suppression research
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Nazi Fascination with the Occult
The Nazi fascination with the occult was rooted in a desire to legitimize racial supremacy, eradicate traditional Judeo-Christian values, and construct a pseudoscientific "political religion". While pop culture often depicts the Third Reich as actively wielding supernatural artifacts, historical reality shows that the Nazis used fringe sciences, mythology, and esoteric symbols primarily as propaganda to unify a traumatized post-WWI population and dehumanize their enemies.

1. Key Motives Behind the Fascination
Legitimizing the Master Race: The Nazis eagerly embraced the concept of Ariosophy—a belief that a "superior" Aryan race originated from a lost, mythical northern continent like Thule or Atlantis. They believed this proto-Aryan race possessed supernatural origins and historical dominion over the earth.

Replacing Christianity: Many top officials, particularly SS leader Heinrich Himmler, despised the Jewish roots of Christianity. They sought to fabricate a modern, neopagan faith based on Germanic folklore, ancestor worship, and the veneration of ancient Nordic gods.
Weaponizing Pseudoscience: The regime blurred the line between science and the supernatural. They supported "border sciences" (or Grenz'swissenschaft) like World Ice Theory, pendulum-dowsing, and astrology, believing it offered superior, racially pure alternatives to traditional clinical science.

Creating a "Supernatural Imaginary": By integrating occult folklore (such as tales of vampires, werewolves, and alien-human hybrids) into everyday rhetoric, the Nazis painted their political enemies (Jews, Freemasons, and Communists) as literal, monstrous parasites, which helped justify the atrocities of the Holocaust.

2. Major Occult Figures and Organizations
The Thule Society: Founded after World War I, this occult and nationalist discussion group featured early prominent Nazis like Rudolf Hess. They popularized the swastika and the myth of Thule, laying the groundwork for Nazi ideological racism.

Heinrich Himmler and the SS: Himmler was the most prominent occult enthusiast in the regime. He modeled the SS like a religious order of Teutonic Knights, replacing Christian holidays with pagan rituals. He also established an anthropological research division, the Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Society), to conduct pseudoscientific research and archaeological digs to prove Aryan supremacy.
Karl Maria Wiligut: A mentally unstable esoteric figure who served as Himmler's personal mystic. Wiligut claimed German history dated back 228,000 years to a time populated by giants and gods. He designed the runic-engraved SS Death's Head ring and helped create ritual ceremonies for the SS.

3. The Reality of Hitler’s Stance
Contrary to popular mythology—which often portrays Adolf Hitler as an avid occultist searching for the Holy Grail or the Spear of Destiny—his actual relationship with mysticism was pragmatic.
Disdain for Esotericism: Hitler generally viewed esoteric societies and Heinrich Himmler’s pagan rituals as absurd, embarrassing, and counter-productive to the modern political goals of the state. [
The Astrology Crackdown: Despite occasionally relying on fringe sciences, the Nazi regime officially banned independent astrologers and suppressed unscientific occult societies in the late 1930s, particularly after the defection of Rudolf Hess.
Pragmatic Use: Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels still recognized the value of the "supernatural imaginary" to captivate a spiritual German public. The regime strictly controlled occultism, suppressing groups that dissented, while selectively utilizing astrologers to spy on or predict Allied movements during the war.
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It was on a slow day at work that I saw this cover and decided to give this book a quick read (only 352 pages). That said, on my vaunted five-star rating schema, this book is an "OK" read worthy of three-and-a half stars. Readers of Douglas Preston, and C.S. Graham would definitely enjoy this read.

As with all my literary ramblings, this is just my five cents' worth.
Profile Image for Mags Shaw.
191 reviews
November 3, 2022
I’ve traveled considerably (all 50 states and over 30 countries) and like the most that Author Healey’s research of locations is excellent. I can often visualize the location described in the script and it always brings a smile to my face. In this particular book the research of the SS and Nazi treatment of the Jews was spot-on. Thus the reader was not only entertained but educated on that disturbing period of world history. I love well documented historical fiction!
Profile Image for Gail Thompson.
Author 6 books24 followers
February 5, 2020
Interesting. A bit far fetched. It is really an investigative book of WII.
Profile Image for Steve.
463 reviews
August 5, 2016
Not as good as the first two books that I read from this author
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews