Man in the Green Hat

by Manning Coles

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881842648
• ISBN13: 9780881842647
• Release Date: October 1986
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fictional mystery springing from Mussolini's historical capture.

The Man In The Green Hat is an interesting cross genre novel - a bit whodunnit, at bit of a war story, slightly James Bondish, with Mafia type bad guys. It's written in a simple, readable journalistic style with humor and suspense. It's about the search for an English Diplomat, Leonard Adair, who disappeared in northern Italy in the early 1950s. He'd been there during the Nazi retreat and capture of Mussolini during the war, so it's hinted that his disappearance has something to do with the missing treasures Mussolini and his cabinet may have carried. Before the story follows the protagonist, secret service agent Thomas Hambledon, on his search for the missing diplomat Adair, there's a lengthy flashback sequence introducing two poor Italian brothers who decided upon a life of crime before the war, and joined the German army as interpreters to further that cause. Ordinarily I detest flashbacks, but this one is like a novel within a novel, and very interesting as the two brothers travel in the same German convoy Mussolini was hiding in, and cross paths with Adair, then escaping an Italian prison camp and making his way to the Swiss border. I learned a bit of history as reading these events surrounding Mussolini's end prompted me to look up facts. The fictional book is reasonably consistent with historical facts, and changes into a race against time as Hambledon finds clues leading to the two Italian brothers who may be holding Adair alive for some temporary reason.