Peter Krimsov: The Stalingrad Conspiracy

All readers of spy fiction who have been existing in a partial vacuum since the last James Bond story can now step into the exhilarating atmosphere of a new kind of intense and suspenseful spy adventure by meeting Peter Krimsov. When Major Peter Krimsov, a former language professor, is sent on a mission behind German lines at Stalingrad, he overhears a plot by a Russian general to defect to the Nazis. He is promptly assigned to the ultra-secret State Security Department, and ordered to uncover the Russian traitor. But Krimsov has a more urgent reason to find the traitor. To conceal the meeting, a nearby village has been wiped out by Nazi extermination squads. Raped and murdered in that village was Krimsov’s pregnant wife. His first assignment is to track down Karl von Bringler, the sole German general still alive who attended the meeting, but who has disappeared. Krimsov’s travels take him throughout Europe and finally to Argentina in search of Pilar, the beautiful mistress of the missing German. Ruthless and deadly, both as a man hunter and lover, he uses Pilar as his bait to corner von Bringler for a confrontation. The irony of the search is that Krimsov himself also falls in love with the designing woman. Returning to Russia with his explosive secret, shattered in body and close to death, he must unravel the final threads of the massive plot that reaches to the very pinnacle of his government. About the Author: Lester Taube was born of Russian and Lithuanian immigrants in Trenton, New Jersey. He began soldiering in a horse artillery regiment while in his teens, where in four years he rose from the grade of private to the exalted rank of private first class. During World War II, he became an infantry platoon leader and participated in operations in the Bismarck Archipelago, was attached to the 3rd Marines for action on Iwo Jima, and finally combat on Okinawa, the last battle of the war. After leaving the army and recuperating from wounds and malaria, he became general manager of a 400 employee electronic company in California, manager of a 450 employee paper stock company in Pennsylvania, and finally opened a logging and pulpwood cutting operation in Canada. Called back to duty during the Korea Police Action, he served as an advisor to the Turkish army, then as an intelligence officer and company commander in Korea. During the Vietnam period, he was stationed in France and Germany as a general staff officer working in intelligence and war plans. Prior to retirement as a full colonel, he moved to a small village in the mountains of North Tyrol, Austria, and kept a boat for five years on the Côte d’Azur, France. He began writing novels while in France, and after producing four books, which were published in a number of countries, and selling two for motion pictures, he stopped - “as there was heavy soldiering to do and children to raise.” Returning to the U.S. after 13 years overseas, he worked as an economic development specialist for the State of New Jersey helping companies move to New Jersey or expand therein. He has four children, all born in different countries.