Ministry of Fear

In London during the Blitz, an amnesiac must outwit a twisted Nazi plot in this "e;master thriller"e; of espionage, murder, and deception (Time Magazine). On a peaceful Sunday afternoon, Arthur Rowe comes upon a charity fete in the gardens of a Cambridgeshire vicarage where he wins a game of chance. If only this were an ordinary day. Britain is under threat by Germany, and the air raid sirens that bring the bazaar to a halt expose Rowe as no ordinary man. Recently released from a psychiatric prison for the mercy killing of his wife, he is burdened by guilt, and now, in possession of a seemingly innocuous prize, on the run from a nest of Nazi spies who want him dead. Pursued on a dark odyssey through the bombed-out streets of London, he becomes enmeshed in a tangle of secrets that reach into the dark recesses of his own forgotten past. And there isn't a soul he can trust, not even himself. Because Arthur Rowe doesn't even know who he really is. "e;A storyteller of genius,"e; Graham Greene composed his serpentine mystery of authentic wartime espionage and one the author's personal favorites while working for MI6 (Evelyn Waugh). But The Ministry of Fear "e;is more than a mere thriller . . . [it's a] hypnotic moonstone of a novel"e; (The New York Times).