THE KUMMERSDORF CONNECTION by Eric Ramsey

Finished Fr 12/26/14

'Kummersdorf' is German for 'sorrowful' (sorrowful town)

Eric Ramsey is a pseudonym for David Hagberg-
wikipedia entry-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hagberg

Kozhevnikov is a Soviet operative who uncovers a link between a Nazi death camp and a possible camp in Siberia. He thinks that 100,000 Jewish women are being held and will be eliminated. He tries to defect. The western operatives think that he might be part of a plot to sell a fabricated story that will prove to be bogus and embarrass the west.

The Nazis were doing genetic experiments and the Russians stole the info and then spent thirty years building on the knowledge and were now building an army of clones.

Much better than an 'airport read', but along those lines.

Gustav Predel is a doctor working in Wisconsin on genetics. This man is actually an escaped Nazi who ran the camp in East Germany during WWII. The Nazis burned the camp and all the research animals and Jewish convicts, but he escaped. He uses the name Dr. Meitner in the US.

Predel has recently been awarded a Pulitzer prize for his work, and this leads a New Orleans reporter, Laurie Andrews, to find out about is background. She travels to his home and Germany to check up on him. In the end, Russian spies capture her and bring her to the new facility in Siberia. The town is called Markovo.

Fedor Udalov- This is the name of one of the Russian clones. They are all identical and Nordic types with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Rafn is the name of a western operative who is operating out of Norway for hire. He is an old hand in the espionage business and his connection to Kozhevnikov is that during WWII he saved the man's life. So now, Kozhevnikov's life is 'in his hands'. Rafn is disillusioned and the Kummersdorf Operation rekindles his belief in mankind, or he realizes that he has been living a flawed emotional life.

Kozhevnikov's wife has numerous affairs and she is convinced that he should stay in the service of the Soviets, but only for monetary reasons. She is having an affair with Kozhevnikov's supervisor. Kozhevnikov kills Nadya in a fight in their apartment. She was going to turn him in and she fell and hit her head. The Soviet authorities call the murder a suicide to keep Kozhevnikov under their control. They send him to the camp in Siberia. He hopes to gain information about what they're doing, and escape to the west, and the authorities hope to keep him under control in Siberia.

In the last scene Kozhevnikov dies just as Rafn is about to tell him that the Israelis have destroyed Kummersdorf East. West was how the original Nazi camp was referred to in the novel.

The spy action in the novel was very good, but the clone angle was kind of weak and wasn't adequately developed. Seemed tacked on and really wasn't believable. However, I felt the need to read the book in its entirety.