Interesting story starting with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour using historical figures of the time in a clever plot line to introduce the main characters especially Quincy Kane as a protection agent to FDR. He is used in a federal plot to print counterfeit currency as a bribe for a French official. This in involves him moving secretly to Los Angeles where his lover, a journalist is based. His family story is interwoven into the story as his young sister has developed polio which the President obviously understands and offers Kane his support. Still as a side story Kane’s lover is also training as a boxer for a rematch with an opponent who beat her badly in a previous bout. This introduces a dark gangster character into the narrative which takes up a large part of the story. It all gradually blends together and the ending is short and dramatic with hopefully more to come to clarify Kane’s relationship problems and his place in the future wartime events.

It begins in December 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor has just happened. Kane is a Secret Service agent assigned to District Sixteen, close protection of the president, FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt). FDR is well respected, loved even, being the only president to serve more than two terms, coming over as a man that the agents would be proud to serve, even lay down their lives for. The author paints a vivid picture of life in the White House at this period of flux as the US finally enters the war. This is entertainingly enhanced by the visit of Winston Churchill with all his well-known foibles, a complex demanding man but one of courage and determination.

FDR is of course largely wheelchair bound, but with determination and strength of character strives to escape any limitations placed on him. He suffered from polio and this disease that has been all but beaten in the Western world provides a thread running through the story line.

Change comes when FDR introduces Kane to ‘Wild’ Bill Donovan of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a spook who wants to second him to a counterfeiting black ops job. This will reunite Kane with his great friend and colleague ‘Gus’ Gustave Leaman back in Los Angeles. Kane and Gus brought down a team of highly skilled forgers and their job is to offer them a deal, release from prison to work for them. As they will discover the work of these counterfeiters, from before their capture, are all over LA.

Journalist Lou Mahoney is Kane’s love interest, their relationship providing the glue that holds the stories together. She is a strong, independent and driven young woman, such that she seems to be a little out of place in the 1940s, but LA provides one of the few places such a woman could thrive. Her desire to prove herself leads her into the shady world of female boxing and not for exciting copy. Kane becomes concerned not only for her physical welfare in the ring but with the company she now keeps, in particular her agent.

Lou’s agent is a ‘larger than life’ psychotic Mexican who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He needs to be taken down, so Kane and Gus with help from LAPD try to tackle him head on. The conflict with him provides much of the story’s danger and jeopardy with some thrilling set piece scenes. There’s plenty of testosterone sloshing around for those who enjoy convincing fight scenes.
The afterwards comes as Kane and Gus are sent to North Africa to work as bodyguards for a French Admiral. This brings a brief glimpse of a different world but is accompanied with a sense of melancholy. This is war that nobody wanted but cannot escape and with every success comes a degree of failure. These are days to be endured.

There are many real people as characters within this novel and the author has done a magnificent job in bringing them to life and weaving a fiction around them. This is one of the great strengths of the Spoils of War as a series. Overall, the characterisation is excellent. Kane is the good man in a difficult position with tough choices, the antagonist is convincingly evil, the heroine Lou is captivating and her relationship with Kane is one the reader wants to weather the storm. Family life is strongly portrayed throughout at a time when they were placed under great strain. A touch of the exotic comes from a heavily tattooed skin flick actress and four Cherokee braves being added to the mix.

The timing is perfect to examine the politics of war, which is done in a thoughtful way that adds to the feel of the story. Not only is there the Churchill and FDR relationship and ideals but the complexity of the divided France and the question of internment. The West Coast of the US being home to a large population of people of Japanese and oriental origins, many of whom are second or third generation immigrants but US born citizens. The question of the protection of the state against alien influences and the rights of the individual present a moral conundrum.

Readers who like their stories neatly boxed off might end up a little frustrated. There are loose threads and a lack of binary resolution to others and it is unlikely that there will be a follow up to tidy everything up.

Engrossing, thrilling with a dash of the epic.

I would like to thank Netgalley the author and publisher for allowing access to a copy in exchange for a fair review.

Kane is the 10th book in the Spoils of War series by Graham Hurley. Not having read the earlier books I did wonder if this would hinder my enjoyment of the book, but I needn’t have worried as I found that it would work just as well as a standalone and I didn’t feel like I was missing any information. Set in 1941 just after the attack on Pearl Harbour we follow the life of Secret Service agent Quincy Kane as he is tasked with a covert scheme that is believed will change the course the war is taking.
What struck me about this book was just how well the author managed to portray an America in disbelief after what happened in Pearl Harbour and how the scramble was on to find a way to ensure the safety of its people and the immediate distrust of anyone who looked different. Quincy Kane is close to President Roosevelt, something that is not always appreciated by others within the inner circle of the White House. This connection does seem to be used to get him to agree to a mission that sees him connect with someone from his past, a convicted forger who is pivotal to the plot being masterminded. That being said, Kane does seem to show a small amount of understanding with this person and the feeling appears to be mutual allowing for a productive working relationship.
Whilst he is dealing with this his personal life also fights for attention when his on off partner, journalist Lou Mahoney gets caught up with a known criminal when she enters the world of female boxing. Kane is torn between staying undercover for his mission and protecting Lou from the threat he sees coming her way. When the two worlds collide it puts him on a dangerous course that could see everything come crashing down and risk not just his life.
I really liked Quincy Kane, he is someone who knows what he must do to protect those he cares about and serve the president at the same time. If the lines become a little blurred, he weighs up the options before taking any action. He did cross one line that I am not sure I can forgive him or the author for (even if it was justifiable). The book had a slower pace at the beginning to give the background to what was about to happen but as the story progressed so did the pace and the action. I also liked the fact that the author took time to delve into Kane’s personal life showing the devastating consequences of polio, something his younger sister was just starting to realise and Roosevelt endured daily.
With the way the book ended I am not sure that this is the last we will see of Quincy Kane but if that’s true it would definitely be a book I would pick up in a heartbeat. Graham Hurley may be an author I have not read before but he is one I will be looking out for in the future and think I may just have added nine more books to my TBR pile.

I’ve become a great fan of Graham’s books which combine the drama of real historical events – often revolving around key turning points in 20th century history – with the excitement of a thriller. Although all the books are part of the ‘Spoils of War’ collection, the great thing is they are non-chronological so can be read in any order or as standalones.

In this case the historical starting point is the Japanese bombing of the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in December 1941, described by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time as “a date which will live in infamy”, and which triggered the US’s entry into WW2.

Quincy Kane’s position in the Secret Service, charged with protecting the President, places him close to the heart of things. He can see the difficult decisions the President must grapple with as well as Roosevelt’s day-to-day struggles with the physical consequences of the polio he contracted as a young man. The author creates a neat personal connection between the two men and, much later, another character.

Kane also witnesses first-hand the difficult relationship between Roosevelt, who favours order and routine, and the mercurial Winston Churchill who seems to thrive on chaos. However, what Roosevelt and Churchill do agree on is the need to stop French ships falling into German hands. A plan is hatched which requires Kane to revisit the organized crime case he solved years before which made him the toast of the Boston Police Department. The only trouble is the people involved are still serving prison time.

From this point on we’re into full-on thriller territory with Kane reunited with a former colleague with a love of reptiles and the music of Wagner. Soon however Kane comes up against a human reptile with an ego the size of a planet, a penchant for violence and a dangerous fascination with the woman in Kane’s life, LA Times journalist Lou Mahoney. Mahoney is surely every red-blooded heterosexual man’s dream: smart, attractive and skilled in the bedroom. It’s a distraction from the mission Kane has been assigned and things become even more difficult when anti-Japanese sentiment scuppers an essential part of the plan.

It’s fair to say Kane doesn’t get through unscathed. Actually, let’s be honest, he’s pretty battered and bruised by the end of the book and makes some death-defying escapes of which James Bond would be proud. The end of the book finds Kane in a different part of the world, possibly leaving things open for a future reunion?

Part of the Spoils of War series, loosely connected novels set during WW2 and before, this is the latest in the series and rather different from its predecessors. This tale is set almost entirely in the USA around the Pearl Harbour period, and America's entry into the war, almost by default as Japan and Germany declared war on the USA first. As in the other novels historical figures mix with fictional, in this case the Roosevelts, and the only recurring character from earlier novels, Winston Churchill has a brief cameo.

The central character is an American agent, a bodyguard of the president, Quincy Kane. Agent Kane is tasked with overseeing an operation involving 'perfect' counterfeit bank notes, part of a plan to win French forces over to the allied side in Europe. This plotline, however, becomes submerged beneath a parallel narrative which links Kane's journalist girlfriend with organised crime in Los Angeles.

The story reads well, as is usual with this series of novels, but is not among the best, in my opinion, as plot lines rise up, are set to one side, or are too easily resolved. There is also a rather cryptic and depressing epilogue to finish the book, which highlights the pointlessness of much of what precedes. Perhaps that was the point.

Yet another wonderful addition to the exceptional Spoils of War series. Quincy Kane is a brilliantly depicted character and flawed hero and Hurley paints a vivid picture of an America caught with its pants down by the Japanese attack on Peal Harbour and the panic, plotting and reorganisation that followed.

I am in awe of Graham Hurley and how he manages to come up with such quality so frequently and cover so broad a range of subjects.

A part of me still mourns the end of his magnificent police procedurals featuring Faraday, Winter and Suttle but times move on and we should just be grateful that Graham Hurley is still writing such exciting, well researched and high quality novels.