September 1940

In London, a high-level British Agent is found murdered in a safe house known only to the Intelligence service-the clues lead to a mysterious order of assassins, a list of targets-and to Mason Wright.

Frank "Sully" Sullivan, an American working for British Intelligence, is responsible for finding the person who murdered his friend. Unsure of Mason's involvement, he wonders if he is the man responsible, or the group's next victim. Sully is just going to have to trust him for now.

Finding the answers may lie in Occupied France. Mason, Sully, and of course Collette who refuses to be left behind, follow the clues into Nazi-occupied territory to find out who is behind the killings. Joining the newly formed Resistance in a small town outside of Paris, their trail takes them through Loire Valley wine country, uncovering dark secrets of the Third Reich, and eventually leading them face to face with Mason's old nemesis.

The second book in the Mason Wright Series, The Secrets of Saint Joanna will take you from the streets of wartime London, through a remote Spanish train station at the base of the Pyrenees, and into Occupied France. With the help of the owners of a local winery, some old and new friends, Mason, Sully, and Collette risk their lives in search of answers

***

The body from the roof had been delivered to the living room and was lying on the stretcher on the floor. The rifle was next to the body along with its case. Sully crouched down and asked the medical personnel for a rag. He lifted the blood-soaked jacket lapel of the man and reached into his breast pocket, searching for anything that would identify him. Coming up empty, he felt around the man's pant pockets-nothing. He rolled the body over and checked for back pockets, or something in his waistband: still nothing. He told the medical personnel that they could take the body to the morgue and informed them of the second one in the basement. He ordered two officers to accompany the bodies.

"Do not stop for anyone," Sully told them. "If anyone asks, use my name. This is a wartime security issue and needs to be kept quiet." The men agreed as they removed the body and left.

Sully returned to the middle of the room and picked up the rifle. Familiar with all types of weapons, he recognized it right away as a Mauser Carbine 98, the standard-issue weapon of the German infantry. This model had been modified with a silencer and was easily dismantled to fit in the case. With a range of up to four hundred yards, Sully was lucky to be alive. He wondered how a German agent was running around London with this weapon without anyone having any idea. Sully also believed this was far from over; John Cleary had been on to something, and Sully needed to find out what.

Sully put down the rifle and moved on to the case lying next to it. He popped the two latches to find a small booklet emblazoned with a skull on the cover. Sully picked it up, pulled off the elastic strap wrapped around, and opened it. There were several pages of notes and diagrams. He thumbed through the pages, eventually arriving at one page containing a list of names. "LONDON" was written above them. He recognized just three.

The name at the top with a line through it was John Cleary's; the next name on the list was his. Though it had been close, no line would be drawn through "Frank Sullivan" yet. Sully assumed this was a list of people to be eliminated, but the only other name he recognized was one he had only seen twice. Two crime scenes, two murders, Totenkopf, and a familiar name; that's all Sully had to work from. He wondered to himself: Who the hell is Mason Wright?

The Secrets of St. Joanna - innbundet, Engelsk, 2020