The Spy's Daughter

The Spy's Daughter is a gripping, intricate historical suspense novel. A young US Navy officer in World War II became an unwitting but clever spy in the secret war for the atomic bomb. The story details his adventures and his passionate love affairs, including with a gorgeous triple agent who became the true love of his life. The story is framed within a remarkable daughter's search for her long-lost father--around the world, half a century after the war's end, as further dark truths of Stalin's Soviet Union begin to emerge in its break up in 1991.The Spy's Daughter is a panoramic, literate saga of love, war, tragedy, and redemption. It evokes a rich mix of classics including Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, and Homer's Odyssey-yet it is first and foremost a work in its own class, sure to thrill avid readers of poetic and fine writing. It is a lyrical love story as well, and a graphic suspense thriller. Historical figures like Wild Bill Donovan (head of the U.S. OSS spy agency), Alger Hiss, U-Boot captain Heinrich Fehler, and others appear-there is even a cameo by a young, skulking naval officer named Richard Nixon-but the primary love story is that of Tim Nordhall and several beautiful woman who cross his adventuresome path.Most poignantly, there is the daughter Tim Nordhall long did not know he had. Marianne was begotten in the final days of World War II as a work of love in a world gone mad with war. Born in the remote Siberian town of Anadyr, she was part of an elaborate trap personally set by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to kill his worst enemy-Marianne's father, a handsome and courageous young U.S. Navy officer, the accidental spy who kept the atomic bomb from falling into Soviet hands in 1945 San Francisco. Orphaned at four, Marianne was adopted by an aristocratic French couple, and raised in luxury. As a glamorous adult woman, she was the darling of paparazzi. Her jet set life made flashbulb trajectories from Paris to Monaco, from New York to Rome. She raised three good sons and took care of an old money fortune, but there was always a hollow spot in her heart. She pined for her lost, beautiful parents-or at least, the truth about their adventuresome lives of danger during World War II.When her husband died racing planes in a Barcelona Red Bull event, she sobered. In her 40s, as the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, she became a very private world traveler seeking answers to the unending pain in her soul.Was her father still alive somewhere, hiding in plain sight? Was it true that he had two wives, but never stopped yearning for the gorgeous triple agent who captured his soul--his worst enemy and his greatest love? Framed by Marianne's quest, this is the story of her parents and their wartime love. It is a violent yet romantic tale as unpredictable as the universe itself.