Wolfgang's Castle

This book is now published by Pegasus, and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or eBook format.

For a gallery of images of Nuremberg past, please click here.

To read an account of the fascinating background to this book and Cursing the Darkness, the first novel in this series, please click here.

To view a video description of the book and its fascinating back story, please click here.

Reviews

Wolfgang's Castle is a fun and exciting World War II thriller in the tradition of Eye of the Needle, The Great Escape, or The Guns of Navarone. The story begins in Bavaria when a British spy plane detects suspicious activity: Hitler may be developing a revolutionary new weapon that could change the course of the war.
What follows is a suspenseful series of plans, tricks, and operations to figure out what's happening in Hitler's remote research facility and to foil the dictator's objectives.
The author puts you in the scenes as the heroes impersonate Nazi officers, parachute into enemy territory, gather intelligence while hiding in snow-filled woods, and more. The story also includes just the right amount of romance. Wolfgang's Castle is perfect for World War II buffs or anyone looking to get caught up in a gripping tale of espionage.
(Al Macy, bestselling author of Conclusive Evidence)

It is part of a continuing series of novels about the endeavours of a group of Germans to counter the unstoppable advance of the Nazi régime. Wolfgang's Castle is a very captivating and fascinating book. I read it with rapt attention, as I was totally absorbed in it. The fast-paced storyline is amazing, and it has a lot of twists in it; this is what I love the most about this book.
Also, this book has a good mix of action, suspense, humor, and a bit of romance in it. I strongly recommend Wolfgang's Castle to all lovers of war books, and historical books. And generally, I recommend it to anyone who loves books that keep one captivated and in suspense.
(onlinebookclub.org.)

Summary of the plot
In a remote Bavarian valley in 1940, Nazi scientists are working on Project Sea Eagle to create a waterborne war machine which would spearhead a second invasion attempt of Britain. Four anti-Nazi Germans, two SOE operatives and 20 RAF officer POWs set out with severely limited resources and considerable ingenuity to destroy this 'aquaplane'.

Their target is a hybrid of sea-going craft and airplane which exploits a phenomenon called the 'ground effect', in which the vehicle is able to 'fly' a few feet above the surface at very high speeds with minimum drag. The intention is to create a very fast landing vessel which can transport troops and materiél across the Channel in a renewed assault on the south coast of England after Hitler's decision to call off Operation Sealion, the original invasion plan, as a result of the Luftwaffe's failure to dominate the skies during the Battle of Britain.

The design and production facility for Sea Eagle is housed underground, making it inaccessible to a bombing raid - and in any event a large-scale military assault would be out of the question, given the logistics, the assumed unacceptable loss of life and the fact that British forces are at full stretch seeking to cope with a rampaging onslaught from an all-conquering Nazi Germany.

Major Archie Wellings of the SOE joins forces with two German couples and others in a bold attempt to halt Sea Eagle in its tracks, partly by turning Nazi ideology against itself, but also by a number of extremely clever ruses.

Wolfgang's Castle is the second novel in a loosely-connected series on the challenges facing Germans who were determined to undermine the Hitler régime from within. In the first, Cursing the Darkness, some of the characters who also appear in the second novel seek to assist those who through no fault of their own have fallen foul of the régime, and to humiliate some of the worst Nazis in positions of power and influence in Nuremberg in the mid-1930s.

The concept of the Ground Effect Vehicle is based on experiments undertaken after the Second World War, some of which have reached the stage of commercial production. In this novel, it is assumed that the original designs of these vehicles were worked on in Germany in secret in the 1930s and were reaching viability as military weaponry in late 1940.

In Wolfgang's Castle, challenging issues - from the nature of patriotism to the role of women in wartime - are explored with a touch of satirical humour. It's an exciting and thought-provoking page-turner with a dash of romance.