The torqued man : a novel /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A damn good read."--Alan Furst

A brilliant debut novel, at once teasing literary thriller and a darkly comic blend of history and invention, The Torqued Man is set in wartime Berlin and propelled by two very different but equally mesmerizing voices: a German spy handler and his Irish secret agent, neither of whom are quite what they seem.

Berlin--September, 1945. Two manuscripts are found in rubble, each one narrating conflicting versions of the life of an Irish spy during the war.

One of them is the journal of a German military intelligence officer and an anti-Nazi cowed into silence named Adrian de Groot, charting his relationship with his agent, friend, and sometimes lover, an Irishman named Frank Pike. In De Groot's narrative, Pike is a charismatic IRA fighter sprung from prison in Spain to assist with the planned German invasion of Britain, but who never gets the chance to consummate his deal with the devil.

Meanwhile, the other manuscript gives a very different account of the Irishman's doings in the Reich. Assuming the alter ego of the Celtic hero Finn McCool, Pike appears here as the ultimate Allied saboteur. His mission: an assassination campaign of high-ranking Nazi doctors, culminating in the killing of Hitler's personal physician.

The two manuscripts spiral around each other, leaving only the reader to know the full truth of Pike and De Groot's relationship, their ultimate loyalties, and their efforts to resist the fascist reality in which they are caught.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

What was the truth about German spy handler Adrian de Groot and his Irish agent, friend, and sometimes lover Frank Pike during World War II? With two very different manuscripts dug out of the rubble of 1945 Berlin, it's hard to tell. One shows de Groot wresting IRA fighter Pike from prison in Spain to facilitate a German invasion of Ireland, while another shows Pike assuming the mantle of Celtic hero Finn McCool and planning the assassination of bigwig Nazi doctors. An intriguing debut from Whiting Fellowship winner Mann.

Publishers Weekly Review

Debut novelist Mann's colorful if drawn-out historical adventure, set in the last three years of the Third Reich, follows a reluctant (but not that reluctant) Nazi agent. Sonderführer Adrian de Groot, alias Johann Grotius, is charged with acting as "case officer" for the Irish revolutionary Proinnsias "Frank" Pike, currently being held prisoner in Spain. His mission is to groom the IRA fighter for life as a double agent ahead of a planned invasion of Ireland. Pike reawakens de Groot's prewar literary aspirations, and the two become lovers before embarking on a daring mission to infiltrate a radio broadcast and sway it to Germany's purposes. In a parallel story line, Pike is the Gaelic folk hero Finn McCool, a double agent and assassin at large "in the bowels of Teutonia," cutting a murderous path through the SS, eventually setting his sights on Dr. Morell, Hitler's personal physician. In this version, de Groot is Cú Chulainn, the "Torqued Man" of the title, a figure of redemption with "merchant's blood but literature in his heart... a reluctant middleman for book-burners." The narrative, though, is overlong and its length outstrips its considerable charm. Still, Mann proves adept at picking up on the emotional kernels at the heart of history. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Jan.)

Kirkus Book Review

An Irish double agent and his German handler form an unlikely bond in 1940s Berlin. When ex--Irish resistance fighter Proinnsias "Frank" Pike is liberated from a Spanish prison in 1940 by German intelligence operative Adrian de Groot, aka Johann Grotius, the ill-matched duo are launched on a daring series of exploits inside Nazi Germany. Debut novelist Mann seamlessly intertwines two narratives--de Groot's candid journal and a third-person account of Pike's escapades entitled "Finn McCool in the Bowels of Teutonia" (his alter ego is a well-known hunter/warrior figure in Irish mythology)--to describe some of the same events from their wildly differing perspectives. De Groot, a philologist and translator and the titular torqued man (another sly nod to Irish myth), recruits Pike to engage in missions intended to turn Ireland's ancient antipathy to England into full-fledged support for Hitler's regime, but the Germans are a step behind the English, who intend to take advantage of Pike's presence in the heart of the Reich's war machine to thwart these schemes and serve their own ends. Once Pike, whose "man of action" bravado and "gregarious and libidinous personality" contrast sharply with de Groot's intellectual diffidence, is transported to the heart of Berlin, he embarks on a devilishly clever "assassination-and-mayhem campaign" designed to decimate the upper ranks of the German medical profession, with the goal of eventually eliminating Hitler himself. More suited to scholarship than spycraft, de Groot finds that his attempts to bring order to the "perpetual misadventure that life with Pike would come to entail" are complicated by an intense personal affection for his charge. Mann's brisk and well-constructed plot is enhanced by equally impressive prose that succeeds in making the inner lives of his principal characters as engaging as Pike's often hair-raising (if occasionally ill-conceived) deeds. A wily spy novel with a human touch. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.