The Counterfeit Candidate (The Reich Trilogy Book 1)

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Q. You have worked on many of the UK’s most cherished TV shows such as Top Gear, A League of Their Own Road Trip, This is Your Life, Crimewatch and Watchdog. What has been the secret of your success, and how do you feel to have lived the life you lead? It was Clarkson who came up with the now famous replacement name, The Stig, denounced by Klein at the time as “the worst name I’ve ever heard”. But, “in typical Jeremy humour, he only wanted a handful of people to put two and two together as to what the name meant”. In fact, says Klein, new boys at Clarkson’s old public school, Repton College, were routinely called Stigs. And this should surprise no-one familiar with the ebullient Klein, the award-winning director, for 25 seasons, of the car programme of car programmes, Top Gear. He admits, however, that the attraction for him lies not under the bonnet but in the way the cars look — he loves the aesthetic of a sleek vehicle. The earth they dug up was put into large bags and loaded onto a lorry which was driven far away to the north out of the city and dumped where no one would suspect where the earth had originally come from. The way that these different strands come together so cohesively in the book, and how they are amply supported by a well-drawn rollcall of heroes and antagonists – including Hitler himself – is no doubt thanks to Klein’s expertise in delivering much-watch television.

way too obvious and cheap mr klein of your "goal" here of the republican specific candidate for president-way too cheap.The Führer was incandescent with rage. Adolf Hitler’s piercing blue eyes burned with fury as he let rip at Martin Bormann. The two notorious Nazis the world believed had died in Berlin were very much alive and mortified as they listened to the world news on a Zenith Console Radio Phonograph, which was in imminent danger of being destroyed by the Führer’s flailing arms. I have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories; the Roswell UFO incident, JFK’s assassination, the moon landings, Princess Diana’s car crash, all come to mind. The Führer's Prophecy by BAFTA Award-winning TV director Brian Klein builds upon the breakout success of The Counterfeit Candidate to deliver a second superb entry in the author’s unmissable Reich Trilogy.

There is a scene in the book that seems implausible to me. Why on Earth would Martin Bormann draw international attention to El Blondi secret hideout by bringing a famous opera singer like Maria Callas (1923-1977) to perform at Hitler's Birthday Party? That is the brilliant ‘What If …’ question that is explored to its full potential in new alternative history thriller The Counterfeit Candidate by celebrated TV director Brian Klein. A wild rollercoaster that’s thrilling from the beginning to the end, The Führer’s Prophecy is the very definition of the term ‘gripping’. The bank heist, planned like a military operation for 8 months and perfectly executed was part of Pedro Garcia’s retirement plan, he was just looking for cash and money but was totally unaware of the contents of box 1321. They were equally oblivious to the small red velvet pouch that had spilled from one of the cloth bags and was now lying on the grass verge in his father’s garden, a few feet from the front door. The first mistake had been made. There seem to be occasional factual errors: suggestion that Treblinka was opened in late 30s, when it wasn't started until 1942 (although, is the character lying?). Wasn't Hitler vegetarian? (maybe that's a myth).

Q. How did writing The Führer's Prophecy differ to writing The Counterfeit Candidate? Was it easier, or perhaps more challenging in certain ways? A superb thriller where Mossad and the Taliban come head to head, The Führer’s Prophecy builds upon its prequel and, with a jaw-dropping finale, sets us up for a third and final entry in what is now called ‘The Reich Trilogy’. Cruise’s PR girl turned pale. There was a helicopter on standby waiting to take Cruise and Diaz to the première. “You can’t be late!” But Cruise, an obsessive Top Gear fan who tuned in in California with his friend Matt Damon, got his way and drove again in the dry — becoming, of course, top of the leader board. And it's a good story, no doubt about it. Martin Bormann enables Hitler and Eva Braun's escape to Argentina. There, Bormann plots for Hitler's son to move to California, get rich on pharmaceuticals, and then for his grandson to run for the US presidency. Good job the women kept giving birth to male babies. What will happen as president remains hazy. (I'm guessing it was set in 2012 to avoid any potential lawsuits of parallels with Donald Trump had it been set in 2016.)

The story moves along at a fast and determined pace and there is much to take in in terms of plot and malevolence, in fact there are some truly unlikable characters but all credit to the author for making this such an intriguing read. I enjoyed the way the story flipped around in time and became increasingly fond of the two detectives Chief Inspector Nicolas Vargas of the Buenos Aires Police Department and his American counterpart, Lieutenant Troy Hembury of the LAPD who really do have to keep their wits about them especially when the action really starts to heat up. Q. This is your debut novel. What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing it, and how did you overcome them? At the last count, he says, Brian Klein had owned (not all at the same time), five Aston Martins, two Ferraris, four Maseratis, and eight Porsches. A. I think a bit of both, to be honest. I’d had the idea for over 25 years and my love of thrillers meant I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it, when it came to turning the idea into an actual book. Can the men get away with the biggest heist in Argentinian history or will the finders get to them first? There is a third option, that Chief Inspector Nicolas Vargas who has been put on the case discovers who the men are first and get to them before the finders do.without giving the name the most heinous despised leader of the 20th century at the core of this book; when written in a fictional format book his grandson is poised to be specifically exactly and only the "republican" presidential candidate in the US. Klein’s Hitler is a means to an end in the book: Martin Bormann, who accompanies Hitler on his fictitious escape, is portrayed as much more evil, but there is a strange absence of antisemitism from his Nazi characters, particularly in the modern sections when they are more likely to have encountered Jews on an equal footing. As three men in Argentina dig a tunnel at precisely on Monday 24th May 2011 they start drilling a tunnel that three men, continued every weekday night and weekend for eight months.

These scenes are harrowing to read but they bring an air of reality to the fantastic that pushes the present-day stakes even higher. On one occasion in 2010 the programme’s most passionate fan, Tom Cruise, turned up with Cameron Diaz, his co-star in the film Knight and Day, due to première in Leicester Square that night in the presence of Prince Charles. The Counterfeit Candidate also explores the dark truth of power, greed and corruption, and how the secrets of the past always eventually surface. I am not sure that I agree with that. What all three books have in common is their overlapping Nazi German themes. Beyond that, they are different books. ODESSA File (1972) and Boys From Brazil (1976) are more or less political-historical thrillers; with the latter having a science fiction aspect (i.e. the birthing of Hitler clones)

Without giving anything away, the final scenes – where the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad shoot it out with the Taliban – will have you jumping out of your seat in excitement, and it ends on a killer cliff-hanger that will have you at the front of the queue when the third and final instalment of Klein’s The Reich Trilogy is released. Two cops – Chief Inspector Nicholas Vargas of the Buenos Aires Police Department and Lieutenant Troy Hembury of the LAPD – had uncovered Franklin’s dark past just in time, and with the latter’s seeming death they had thought the case closed.