NAZI SABOTEURS on the BAYOU

“ . . . readers will find themselves lost within every page. Just like I did . . . every history buff’s dream book. The scenes immediately come live. Bursting with death, loss, and action. A fast-paced thriller that sends readers back to WWII time era.”

— Urban Book Reviews, Danielle Urban, January 22, 2017

“ . . . brilliant historical fiction . . . what you find between the covers is a thoroughly-researched, incredibly detailed story of some of the unsung heroes of WWII . . . it’s a bit like the film “Saving Private Ryan,” a fictional interpretation of a historical event written in a way that can be appreciated by even those who might not normally like war stories . . . the author pulls it off with aplomb.”

— Awesome Indies, January 26, 2017

“This is a sweeping story of heroism and heartache, bravery and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the cataclysmic events forever remembered as World War Two. Five stars to Steven Burgauer and his tale of historical World War Two fiction. May we never again need to live through such a terrible conflict.”

— November 20, 2016, Publishers Daily Reviews

“A rich and complex plot that’s as compelling as it is entertaining. Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou proves a wholly enjoyable read and one that is highly recommended.”

— December 4, 2016, BookViral by John Reese

“An exceptionally well written, complex, multi-character dominated thriller from beginning to end.”

— Midwest Book Review, Small Press Bookwatch, Harry Taylor, January 2017

As the book opens, an old German (Heinrich Brock) is found dead by a prostitute (Kentucky Rose) in Mahogany Hall, a New Orleans whorehouse. Sewn into the lining of the dead man’s vest is a notebook filled with hand-drawn maps and what appear to be notes about the comings and goings at military and other installations. The prostitute and an associate (Hector) remove these articles with a view to later disposing of the body.

The next scene finds a pair of German conspirators fretting that their local contact (the dead German) is overdue. We next meet the Mafia crime boss (Nico Carolla) who owns a string of whorehouses and who is soon drawn into the disposition of the corpse from the opening scene. Here we learn some of the history of the Carolla crime family in New Orleans.

Next, we move to the Pacific and meet the grandson of the dead German from the opening scene. PFC Russell Brock is a U.S. Marine currently being trained for the invasion at Guadalcanal.

Then we meet Andrew Jackson Higgins at the helm of the single most important landing craft ever built, the Higgins Boat, the steel-ramped landing craft that brought American troops to Pacific islands and to Normandy. In his colorful manner, Higgins is instructing a class of Coast Guard newbies on how to properly drive and operate his nearly indestructible boat.

Now we meet officials from the Navy’s Bureau of Ships who need Higgins to markedly increase the production of his boats. Higgins faces shortages of materials, manpower, and factory space that present almost insurmountable challenges. The Mafia bosses control much of the labor supply, and thus, accommodations must be made to placate the Carolla family. The Carolla family also has Old World connections in Palermo and Algiers which are proving critical to the North African landings in sixty days.

We next witness the arrival of the Waffen-SS officers charged with sabotaging the Higgins Boat plant essential to the Allies’ success. The loss of the intelligence gathered by the dead German at the start of the story is a setback to the commando team’s plans. The operation is under the direct control of Heinrich Himmler, who the team now communicates with as to how next to proceed. Now enter the code breakers at Bletchley Park who intercept the commando team’s messages. We meet some of the talented code breakers at Bletchley, including one female mathematician through whose eyes we see inside Bletchley Park.

America has a fledging intelligence operation and is almost entirely dependent on British intelligence for intelligence gathering. We now meet Martina Amerada, a Cuban woman with a high-level banking responsibility, including ties to British intelligence, and who is Nico Carolla’s mistress. Martina moves money for the Carolla crime family and also provides diplomatic cover between the Palermo branch of the family and the planners of Operation Torch, the imminent invasion of North Africa. We gain insight into those plans through the eyes of Ian Fleming whose 30 Assault Unit is responsible for dirty tricks all throughout the western Mediterranean. We are also introduced to the Navajo code-talker program essential to securing Marine Corps messages in the Pacific theater.

In rapid succession, the German commando team searches for the lost notebook by visiting the whorehouses Brock has been known to frequent. This search leads to the murder of Hector and later to retaliation by the Mafia against the German conspirators. The battle results in the loss of half of the German commando team. United States marshals are drawn into the story as bodies are discovered in the nearby bayous. The Mafia is suspected in these crimes. When the marshals confront Nico Carolla, the marshals are put on the trail of the commandos which leads to the death of the marshals.

While Bletchley Park is busy trying to crack the code embedded in the Himmler messages, we move back to the Pacific where grandson PFC Russell Brock is involved in the bloody landings at Gavutu ahead of Guadalcanal. The grandson is wounded and nearly dies at nearly the same moment that the single remaining commando attempts to demolish the largest Higgins Boat manufacturing facility in New Orleans, as well as the surrounding infrastructure.

By now, British intelligence has cracked Himmler’s code and Martina Amerada, our Cuban contact, has alerted both the Mafia and the Navy of the impending assault. Nico Carolla prevents the plant from being destroyed and thus becomes the hero of the story.

In the closing chapters, Fleming’s 30AU infiltrates Italian naval headquarters at Sidi Ferruch the very night that Operation Torch gets underway and the Higgins boats prove their indispensability to the war effort. PFC Brock recovers from his wounds in a naval hospital, soon to attend Higgins Boat Operators School to learn how to handle a landing craft. Martina takes possession of all intelligence related to the German commandos so that the threat never becomes public knowledge.

Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou intertwines historic persons, actual events and distant locales of World War II with a fast-moving fictional Nazi plot to disrupt the manufacture of Higgins boats, the remarkable landing craft that won the war for the Allies. Spanning the globe from amphibious landings at Gavutu and Guadalcanal, to the Navajo code talker school near San Diego, to the exotic environs of New Orleans, to the secret world of Bletchley Park, England, to the Allied invasion of North Africa, this tautly written thriller, covering two weeks during the summer of 1942, combines a fully imagined cast of characters with the historically important figures of Andrew Jackson Higgins, Admiral John Godfrey of British Intelligence, Navajo code talker Chester Nez, Colonel “Wild Bill” Donovan of the OSS (later the CIA), Commander Ian Fleming of MI6, along with a Polish intelligence officer code-named “Rygor,” and Sylvestro “Silver Dollar Sam” Carolla, the crime boss of New Orleans.