Beacon of Vengeance, A Novel of Nazi Germany

Reviewed by Awesome Indies

Life Under Nazi Rule – No Holds Barred!

March 17, 2015

Ryan Lemmon, a former US State Department staffer turned OSS spy, tries

to get his lover, Erika Kredow and her son, Leo, out of the clutches of her

Gestapo husband, the evil Horst von Kredow, but things go horribly wrong.

Rene Gershinger, a Franco-German who leads a resistance movement against the

Nazis, helps Erika and Leo get to France, thinking Ryan has been killed in the

operation. They leave Kredow wounded and his face disfigured – but nursing an

obsessive desire for vengeance.

Beacon of Vengeance: A Novel of Nazi Germany by Patrick W. O’Bryon is the

second in a trilogy of Lemmon’s adventures during World War II. This story,

which covers the period 1938 to 1941 and is set primarily in occupied France.

O’Bryon has created a remarkable cast of believable characters and placed them

in a setting that seamlessly melds his fictional characters with the events and real

characters of the era. His descriptions are colorful without being overdone, and

he gives the reader just enough to make the sounds, smells, sights – and fears –

come alive. Reading this epic adventure, one can imagine that the conversations

with Reinhard Heydrich and William Donovan actually took place.

What O’Bryon has done particularly well in Beacon of Vengeance is show the

inhuman cruelty of the Nazis, while still portraying them as humans – flawed, but

human.

I give this book a resounding five stars.