The Corners of the Globe

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Spring, 1919. James âe~Maxâe(tm) Maxted, former Great War flying ace, returns to the trail of murder, treachery and half-buried secrets he set out on in The Ways of the World. He left Paris after avenging the murder of his father, Sir Henry Maxted, a senior member of the British delegation to the post-war peace conference. But he was convinced there was more âe" much more âe" to be discovered about what Sir Henry had been trying to accomplish. And he suspected elusive German spymaster Fritz Lemmer knew the truth of it.

Now, enlisted under false colours in Lemmerâe(tm)s service but with his loyalty pledged to the British Secret Service, Max sets out on his first âe" and possibly last âe" mission for Lemmer. It takes him to the far north of Scotland âe" to the Orkney Isles, where the German High Seas Fleet has been impounded in Scapa Flow, its fate to be decided at the conference-table in Paris. Max has been sent to recover a document held aboard one of the German ships. What that document contains forces him to break cover sooner than he would have wished and to embark on a desperate race south, towards London, with information that could destroy Lemmer âe" if Max, as seems unlikely, lives to deliver it...

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Booklist Review

*Starred Review* In The Ways of the World (2015), set during and immediately following WWI, James Max Maxted stumbled into the espionage game while trying to determine if his father, a British diplomat, killed himself or was murdered. Now Max, still trying to avenge his father's death, finds himself in even deeper, more troubled waters; acting as a double agent for British Intelligence, he's posing as an operative for German spymaster Fritz Lemmer, a lethal chess master moving pieces around an international board. In possession of crucial documents (the Hitchcockian MacGuffin in this deliciously convoluted plot), Max must break cover and attempt to outrun both Lemmer and the British, who are convinced he is a traitor. The chase extends from Scotland's Orkney Islands to the south of France and will set pulses thumping for any readers who thrill to an era when Continental derring-do was conducted on express trains. And, yet, the circumlocutions of the plot and the vividly rendered period setting are only parts of the appeal here: Goddard is an established master at creating characters who leap from the confines of the story, demanding our full attention from Max to his sidekick and former WWI flying comrade, Sam Twentyman, to numerous other full-bodied supporting figures on all sides of the international wheeling and dealing. This luxuriously entertaining historical thriller, the second installment in a trilogy, does for the post-WWI era what Alan Furst does for WWII suspense, irresistible atmosphere (both treacherous and romantic), and a tasty dollop of moral ambiguity.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2016 Booklist