August, 1942. The English and the Germans have been trading punches with bloody noses for a while now, and while American tanks and G.I’s are on the way, the Desert Fox is still plenty dangerous — as he proves when the Luftwaffe assassinates the newest head of the Eighth Army before he even starts his job. CSM Jack Tanner is on medical leave in Cairo following an argument his back lost with an exploding shell, waiting for doctors to give him the all-clear. After looking up an old friend, Jack is asked to pitch in: British intelligence suspects there’s a German spy ring active in the city, and they could use someone with Jack’s street savvy to help sort out who it is. Hellfire is a fun mix of investigation and commando derring-do, and a departure from formula: unlike the first three books in this trilogy, there are neither obstructive British officers or an odiously evil, see-how-I-twirl-my-mustache-and-chuckle-with-menace Nazi present. Instead, Jack’s challenge is the ordinary: the hostile environment of northern Africa, the practiced and competent menace of the Afrika Korps, and…ooh, la la, a lady spy.

Jack Tanner surely gets around World War 2: he began The Odin Mission in Scandinavia, and now he’s arrived in Africa after visits in France and Crete. This series has always focused on small-group combat action, but here Holland mixes things up in several ways: Jack is out of commission at the beginning, engaging instead in some cloak and dagger investigation while waiting to heal up: finding the German spies, especially their potential mole, will become an increasingly important part of the story over all. Jack is thrown into a major battle (Alam el Halfa, I think), and then the book ends with some commando-esque antics that are more in line with the rest of the series. Personally, I liked the variety, and the growing emotional weight that the spy thread adds to the story. It’s utterly absorbing on the whole, so much so that I was late coming back to work from lunch two days running, not minding the clock at all as I read of ominious tanks rumbling in the night, skies made daylight-bright with sustained explosions, and a woman torn between her hatred for the Soviet Union and her unexpected love for an Englishman.

Very much looking forward to the last book, The Devil’s Pact.

Related:
Foxes of the Desert, Paul Carrell. A German history of Rommel’s campaigns in Africa
Operation Compass, a short history of an early Anglo-Italian dustup in Africa