A British secret agent bargains his honor for his wife's life in this well-done WWII suspense tale. Captured and tortured by the Germans on Crete in 1943 after leading a failed partisan raid, Capt. John Lockhart agrees to spy on the Greeks, but only if the SS will secure the safety of his wife, trapped in a Belgian concentration camp. The Germans, meanwhile, are recruiting disaffected British POWs for a special unit, the British Free Corps, to fight the Russians; Lockhart agrees to command it. At every point, however, Lockhart has plans of his own. [Publishers weekly]