My thanks to the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review. The Basil of the title is Basil St. Florian swashbuckling spy and proper hero, also a bit of a cad and ladies man full of charm and wit. Brave clever resourceful and somewhat ruthless, with a typically British stuff upper lip. Well written with a mix of genuine historical figures and well drawn fictional characters in an absorbing intriguing story. One moment tense the next laugh out loud funny, but always interesting if a little far fetched. Recommended.

Stephen Hunter is a successful author with a longtime background in the literary world. His main thrust are books involving the military art of sniping. He is gifted with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry which he has used to bring his novels several steps above other books about sniping and snipers. His current book is a change in focus and involves the exploits of Basil St Florian in action as a spy during World War II. Basil is in the language of another day a "rake" for his many encounters with women. He is bold, daring and has a great sense of humor. He has traveled several times from his home in England into France, a country conquered by the Nazi war machine and an area that might be used as a springboard for action against Britian. He has successfully completed several missions and we meet him as he begins another. In certain situations books are used as keys for secret codes. That is the message to be sent is tied to a mutually known book and the words are represented by location designations used by both parties. The difficulty level is very high since the same book must be used by both senders and receivers in order to decode the message. In his latest mission Basil must travel into enemy territory find a scroll written several hundred years ago, photograph certain portions and bring these photos back in order to be used to convince Russian dictator Joseph Stalin to shift a military position in order to avoid a massacre of his soldiers. In the course of the mission Basil meets Alan Turing, a man that led a group of mathematicians in discovering the key to the Nazi codes used in their transmission of orders. Turing and his group actually lived and worked on breaking codes during WWII. While the codes sought by Basil are not fact, the touch of adding Turing to the plot is a good one and helps validate the action. The almost blasé approach taken by Mr. Hunter brings down the quality of the action described and I felt leaves the reader with a "hey what happened" feeling. If it is a book by Stephen Hunter I would pick up his next novel, but possibly return to awaiting others featuring the snipping format if Basil does not pick up the pace.