Book description
War time Tangier, policed by Franco's Guardia Civil, thick with many
nationalities including Germans and Allies, bitter with the insults of
Colonialism, is a dangerous place. Archaeologist Lily Sampson, recruited
from her studies in Chicago by the enigmatic Dr. Drury, finds herself in
Morocco digging up Neanderthal artifacts at the Cave of Hercules. Quite
soon, she's summoned to help the American Legation with an undercover
mission linked to Operation Torch. The target date: November 8, 1942.
The mission: to control French Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, squash
Rommel, and thrust into Europe's underbelly. Out in the Atlantic,
General Eisenhower will rely on relayed communications. But Lily's
mastery of code is interrupted by murder-not one, but two-which not only
imperils her, but Operation Torch itself. Set in 1942, Baron's
fast-paced second thriller/mystery featuring Lily Sampson (after 2002's
A Fly Has a Hundred Eyes) finds the attractive archeologist working in
Morocco, where her mentor, Prof. Hammond Drury, gets her involved with
the clandestine activities of William "Wild Bill" Donovan, the
real-life founder of the OSS. Lily and Hammond take cover jobs as part
of the American legation in Tangier, while coded messages whiz back and
forth in preparation for an Allied surprise offensive against Rommel.
Foreign agents of several countries cast an eye on Lily, and two of her
friends meet violent ends in a whodunit subplot that borders on the
simplistic. Baron may not meld political treachery, murder and
historical detail as seamlessly as, say,Michael Pearce in his Egyptian
historicals (Death of an Effendi), but the issues she raises about
Western versus Islamic cultural values couldn't be more timely. Aileen
Baron has a Ph. D. in archaeology and taught for twenty years in the
Department of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton.
Her many years of archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East, include a
year at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem as an NEH
scholar, and director of the overseas campus of California State
Universities at the Hebrew University. Her residence in Switzerland, the
hub of the antiquities trade, and her experience in museums has given
her an insight into the underside of the trade in ancient art, the focus
of her latest mystery, The Gold Of Thrace.
