In Satan’s Shadow
By John Anthony Miller
Berlin, 1943
Amanda
Hamilton is a Scottish violinist married to a Nazi Party official. Michael York
is the British spy who risks his life to save hers.
In
Satan’s Shadow – a journey to the darkest depths of the soul.
Excerpt
PROLOGUE
London, England
November 26, 1946
London was alive with optimism after the war ended: ruins
in renovation, the hurt healing, the separated reunited, and the dead honored
and mourned. The future offered so much more promise than the past, when two
global conflicts in a generation left tens of millions dead, and many living
who wished they were not. But hundreds, if not thousands, of Nazi leaders
responsible for the recent cataclysm had vanished, eluding the net cast by the
Americans, Russians, British, and French. It was feared they assembled in an
unknown country and continent, birthing the Fourth Reich on the ashes of the
Third.
Michael York stood in the Victorian Treasures book store,
gazing at a display of recent releases. His face was solemn, his eyes showing a
muted pain, as he opened the week’s bestseller. It was a book of photographs,
Berlin in the last decade, as night fell and darkness draped the world.
From the store front window, he could see the Tower
Bridge, the Thames winding underneath it. A double-decker bus stopped, blocking
his view, and two Canadian soldiers got off, followed by some schoolchildren.
The bus drove away, showing an American soldier in a red telephone booth, probably
calling his British girlfriend. London was inundated with military personnel
savoring a last look at the greatest city in the world before they returned
home. Most were American, buoyant and brash but friendly, while others
represented the British Empire: Canadians, South Africans, Australians, and
some from the Caribbean. They wandered the streets, the world theirs for the
taking, savoring every pleasure the global metropolis had to offer.
York’s eyes returned to the book. He opened the dust jacket
and looked at the author’s picture. It was a good photograph, capturing a
twinkle that lived in her eye, a smile that came so easily to her face, wavy
black hair that cascaded upon her shoulders. Amanda Hamilton, born to Scottish
royalty, had married a German, a leader in the Nazi party. Leaving her homeland
behind, she spent ten years in Berlin, absorbing a new culture, starting a new
life. Her photographs documented a world collapsing around her, civilization at
its ebb, humanity at its worst. Now they were shared with mankind.
Michael York turned the pages, the pictures bringing the
past to life, memories returning.
Germany’s evil geniuses were caught in poses the world had never before
seen. Berlin’s finest buildings: Kaiser Wilhelm Church, the Reichstag, the
Berlin Cathedral, and the Brandenburg Gate were shown in their original
splendor, before Allied bombs destroyed them. And birds, not knowing they
trespassed on a calamity, posed innocently but proudly.
He knew she never dreamed fate would place her on the
enemy’s doorstep, friend to some of the most hated men on earth during the most
tumultuous days in human history. A favorite of Hitler, admired by Goebbels and
Göring, her photographs documented life in the upper echelons of the Nazi
party, a world that none on earth ever dreamed existed. It was there that
Amanda Hamilton, never the author of an evil thought, walked in Satan’s shadow.
Pick up your copy of
In Satan’s Shadow
John Anthony Miller
John Anthony Miller was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a father of English ancestry and a
second-generation Italian mother. Motivated by a life-long love of travel and
history, he normally sets his novels in exotic locations during eras of global
conflict. Characters must cope and combat, overcoming their own weaknesses as
well as the external influences spawned by tumultuous times. He’s the author of
the historical thrillers, To Parts Unknown, In Satan’s Shadow, When Darkness
Comes, and All the King's Soldiers, as well as the historical mystery, Honour
the Dead. He lives in southern New Jersey with his family.
Connect
with John: Website • Twitter • Amazon Author
Page • Goodreads.
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See you on your next coffee break!
Take Care,
Mary Anne xxx