Stealing Trinity

by Ward Larsen

Book Overview

USA Today Best-Selling Author & Winner of the Foreword Book of the Year Gold Medal

World War II--the Manhattan Project--the Balance of World Power at Stake

In the last days of WWII, the Third Reich makes a desperate grab to retrieve its most valuable asset--Die Wespe, a spy buried deep in the Manhattan Project. The man chosen for this mission is Alexander Braun--American born, Harvard educated, and a ruthless...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933515988
• ISBN13: 9781933515984
• Release Date: October 2010
• Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

New take on Manhattan Project Spies

Other reviewers have more than covered the exciting story told by Larsen, so I will limit my comments to new areas. I am giving the book five stars for plot originality. Larsen's concept that the Nazis had a spy in the Manhattan Project's design lab at Los Alamos is, as far as I know, a new and intriguing plot. It is now common knowledge that Beria's NKGB penetrated the Manhattan Project and stole most of its secrets, which explained how the Soviet Union managed to detonate a nuclear device, First Lightning in 1949, years before the OSS and our military estimated they could do so. In STEALING TRINITY, a German physicists and Nazi spy, The Wasp, has managed to compile most, if not all, of the secret data in one suitcase. Germany surrenders as Capt. Alexander Braun, the Nazi agent sent to contact the Los Alamos spy, is landed off the east coast of Long Island. Can Braun reach The Wasp? If he does, then what? The Third Reich is gone. Larsen uses historical fact as the anchor points in his fascinating story. A British major who specializes in interrogating captured Nazis interviews a captured corporal, who was responsible for destroying top secret files. Before doing so, he took a peek and remembered two words, Manhattan Project. When Major Thatcher makes inquires about the name, red flags are raised and he is told to drop the issue. Exactly the wrong thing to tell a dedicated Nazi hunter, and the hunt begins. Major Thatcher meets the FBI who is more interested in keeping him from finding out what the Manhattan Project is than finding the spy. For those who have had experience with code word projects and "need to know," the story will have echoes of truth. For others will just be an amusing comedy. Ward does an excellent job of describing the first nuclear detonation of Gadget, and the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, without getting in over his or the reader's head in technical details. The USS Indianapolis did deliver the nuclear components and it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. STEALING TRINITY is a good read anchored in historical facts. Fans of W.E.B. Griffin's Men At War series will like this book.

Another Larsen success

This second book is a worthy partner to his Perfect Assassin. Ward's depth of knowledge and research for the book are most impressive. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first two books and hope he is at work on a third.

World War II Thriller!

This is another good book from Ward Larsen. In this novel the Nazis have placed a spy in the Manhattan Project. His code name is Die Wespe (the Wasp). In the dying days od World War II the Nazis decide to bring Die Wespe home to gather the information that he has ovtained. They find a sniper on the Russian front named Alexander Braun. He had previously lived in America with the last name Brown. British intelligence picks up on the plan. The Americans refuse to believe them. The British decide to send Major Michael Thatcher to track down Braun. Braun goes to the home of Lydia Cole,an old friend at Harvard. He is found there by Thatcher and makes his escape. He heads to Los Alamos New Mexico. There he will find Die Wespe whose real name is Karl Heinrich. He is a leading scientist working on Trinity, the atomic bomb used to end World War II. Braun comes into possession of the secrets of how to construct the atomic bomb. He meets up with Lavrenti Beria of Russia who wants the secrets for Russia. Meanwhile Thatcher and Lydia Cole are hot on his trail. This leads to a wild ending. This is a very exciting book that you will enjoy.

An exciting tale of espionage and treason

This is a fantastical spy adventure. Alex Braun is a spy who traverses from Berlin to England, to the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean and then the moneyed leisure of Newport, Rhode Island where his Harvard sweetheart, Lydia Cole, is visiting her parents with her buffoon of a husband. He also travels to the vacant desert of New Mexico and J. Robert Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project, and lastly to the middle of the Pacific. Stealing Trinity moves along at a brisk pace, sucking the reader into an exciting WWII tale of espionage, treason, subterfuge and the realization that Germany is no longer fighting a war. Karl Heinrich, a misguided German Fascist on the Manhattan Project, is ready and willing to impart the secrets of the quiet tribe of university department chairs and Nobel Laureates on Oppenheimer's project in order for the Third Reich to see fruition. Heinrich meets up with Braun (also known as Alex Brown, to his American friends), for their rendezvous, all the while Braun is making plans to sell the secrets to the Russians-and not alerting the fat little Fascist that he's two-timing him. Simultaneously, Major Michael Thatcher, of the Queen's Military in Great Britain, and Mr. Jones of the FBI, are hot on Braun's trail. But Thatcher has a secret weapon to help him get to Braun quicker-the help of blithe young Lydia Cole, the woman who once loved Alex Brown, but who has now suffered a great loss at his hands. You won't be able to put Stealing Trinity down. Regardless of how much truth is in this novel, it's a great peek into the history of the A-bomb. Armchair Interviews says: Amazingly well-written, fast-paced and intriguing.

A Second Homerun

Ward Larsen has taken the old plot line of a potential resurgent Nazi regime at the close of WWII and added a great twist. In the dying days of the Third Reich, Alexander Braun is tasked with contacting the Nazi spy inside the Manhatten project. In the turmoil of the failing Reich, a British Intelligence officer, Michael Thatcher, picks up on Braun's mission. Thatcher, hindered by the FBI, persues Braun hoping to thwart his mission. Mr. Larsen has again written a thriller that will make you lose sleep. The story has good character depth and will have you not wanting to put the book down. With good characters and a twisting plot line, Mr. Larsen has gained a place on my list of preferred authors.