Geektastic fun for both fans of both Tolkien AND James Bond
No Dawn for Men by James Lepore and Carlos Davis is an historical action/thriller with romance and paranormal elements, which makes it sound like kind of a mess, but it's not.
Ian Fleming and J.R.R. Tolkien team up to prevent an object
of dark power from falling into the hands of Nazis. It is 1938 and Hitler has
risen to power in Germany and is poised to unleash his “Final Solution.” In
Nazi circles, J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel “The Hobbit” is highly valued as a
propaganda tool. (“It’s a children’s book,” Tolkien insists, baffled by the
Nazi interest.) The scholarly writer—his expertise is Norse legends—is a
veteran of WWI, so he has seen evil up close and what he’s seen has shaken him
to his core. When a former student enlists his aid in fighting a magical
menace, he eagerly signs on and in the process frames the story that will
become his greatest epic.
Fleming, for his part, is a dashing spy posing as a
journalist and living forever in the shadow of his heroic, war-hero father
Valentine, who met Tolkien in a trench during “the Great War.” He and Tolkien
make a very odd couple, but that could be said of the ragtag assortment of men,
elves and dwarves who banded together in the “Fellowship of the Ring.” You
don’t have to know anything about either Tolkien or Fleming to enjoy this book
but if you are a fan of hobbits and womanizing British agents, you will enjoy
the book even more.
Every single page of this historical novel is chock full of
geekery and goodness, whether it’s a description of a torture that shows up in
an early Bond novel or a description of a particularly lurid sunset that gives
Tolkien the idea of the “Eye of Sauron” for the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Aside from the storylines that follow Tolkien and
Fleming—stories filled with action, romance, courage, and betrayal—there’s an
ongoing power play behind the scenes of the Nazi inner circle as Himmler,
Goebbels, and Heydrich jockey for position. It’s all very “Game of Thrones” and
the stakes are very, very high. As Indiana Jones once said, “Nazis. I hate
those guys.” Well, who doesn’t? And framing them as dark lords in search of an
unspeakable power makes a lot of sense.
This book is a LOT of fun.
