In 2021, BAFTA Award-winning Top Gear director Brian Klein entered the fast lane of the publishing world with his sensational debut novel, political thriller The Counterfeit Candidate. Two years on, and by popular demand, he has penned a sequel, The Führer's Prophecy, which continue the gripping ‘What If?’ premise of what might have happened had Nazi leader Adolf Hitler survived World War Two to continue his evil goals through his descendants.
The Furhers Prophesy
For those who love gritty, fast-paced thrillers which pack a punch you won’t forget, The Führer's Prophecy is most definitely for you.
Written by BAFTA Award-winning Top Gear TV director Brian Klein, who has been behind the camera of the international hit show for a record 28 series, this novel is a stone-cold classic.
Moreover, The Führer's Prophecy is the perfect sequel to the perfect debut, stunning political thriller The Counterfeit Candidate.
That first novel, published in 2021, became a run-away success and Amazon bestseller with more than 60,000 copies sold to-date, dethroning works by literary giants such as John le Carré and Robert Harris.
It has proven so popular, in fact, that a TV adaptation is pressing ahead and will, no doubt, prove to as big a hit on the small screen as in the book charts.
The reason for this, and why The Counterfeit Candidate has amassed more five-star reviews than a new planetarium – as well praise from a host of celebrities including Jeremy Clarkson, Freddie Flintoff, and Romesh Ranganathan – is that it presents an engrossing, shocking and suspenseful that the reader completely buys into.
This, in turn, is thanks to Klein’s gift for weaving fact and fiction into a cohesive, compelling whole, and, thankfully, this signature style is once again on full display in The Führer's Prophecy.
A high-concept thriller, it reintroduces the central villain of the last novel, John Franklin, whose dash to the White House on a Republican ticket was only halted after his true identity as the grandson of Adolf Hitler came to light.
For, it emerged, the reviled Nazi leader had not killed himself in a Berlin bunker in 1945 but had instead fled to Argentina with wife Eva Braun where he built two things: a pharmaceutical empire, and a family to continue his despicable work in future generations.
Two cops – Chief Inspector Nicholas Vargas of the Buenos Aires Police Department and Lieutenant Troy Hembury of the LAPD – had uncovered Franklin’s dark past just in time, and with the latter’s seeming death they had thought the case closed.
A decade on from those events back in 2012, however, Franklin comes out of hiding just as the now Covid-stricken world goes into lockdown, more crazed and determined than ever before.
And he’s been busy formulating ‘Operation Gesamtkunstwerk’, which involves the development of a fiendish new super drug that is undetectable and which, when consumed, renders women infertile.
This he plans to release into the water supply in Israel, and with the aim of bringing about nothing less than ‘The Führer's Prophecy’: the extermination of the Jewish race, as Hitler’s 1939 speech calling for all-out genocide has since come to be known.
The Führer's Prophecy by BAFTA Award-winning TV director Brian Klein builds upon the breakout success of The Counterfeit Candidate to deliver a second superb entry in the author’s unmissable Reich Trilogy.
It’s a complex plan and one that requires the support of the criminal underworld to execute. Accordingly, Franklin recruits a team of mercenaries and terrorists only too happy to do his bidding.
These include members of the Taliban along with notorious international terrorist Matias Paz, better known as ‘Black Scorpion’.
This demented killer will play a pivotal role as Franklin’s right-hand man, but first he needs to arrange Paz’s early release from a maximum security South American jail.
Purchasing some former US military helicopters from the Taliban, left behind when the War in Afghanistan ended, he mounts a bold assault, blasting the Black Scorpion from his cell and escorting him to the comfort of a superyacht where they can get down to business.
As before, it comes down to a reunited Vargas, who has history with Black Scorpion, and Hembury to thwart Franklin before it’s too late.
Leading the counterintelligence initiative, they’re still as much a force to be reckoned with as 10 years before, yet despite the infighting among his own group, Franklin always seems to be painfully one step ahead.
As the clock ticks down, the battle for the survival of an entire nation will reach the Holy Land, and you’ll be riveted to your seat every step of the way.
Action packed, fast paced and filled with amazing twists, and with great characters too, The Führer's Prophecy is everything you could ask of a modern-day blockbuster thriller.
With The Führer's Prophecy, bestselling author Brian Klein delivers everything you could ask of a first-rate thriller.
Heroes Vargas and Hembury are still as appealing as last time, and Vargas’s backstory, still mourning the loss of his Jewish wife 13 years before, adds an added poignancy to proceedings.
This is especially so where he comes to fear that his sister-in-law in Israel may have already been affected by the super drug, which if true will destroy her dreams of starting a family.
It’s these sorts of intimate moments that truly reveal the human cost of Franklin’s inhuman plans.
A similar emotional impact is achieved by flashbacks to the Second World War, where we bear witness to horrific experiments taking place in death camp Auschwitz to make Jewish women infertile.
The reality behind these harrowing scenes makes it all the more distressing, and it all the more imperative for Franklin, and the extreme intolerance and hatred he represents, to be defeated.
The Führer's Prophecy is, though, first and foremost intended as entertainment, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Whether it’s the satisfying way that Vargas and Hembury slowly piece together the clues, the brutal battles and ruthless dispatches, or the rising tension that permeates every chapter as the good guys try to catch up with the Nazi villains, Klein handles it all in a way that suggests he’d be a natural in Hollywood.
You’re always kept guessing and crying out for more, meaning that you should be prepared to squirrel yourself away to read it all in one sitting.
Without giving anything away, the final scenes – where the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad shoot it out with the Taliban – will have you jumping out of your seat in excitement, and it ends on a killer cliff-hanger that will have you at the front of the queue when the third and final instalment of Klein’s The Reich Trilogy is released.
In short, The Führer's Prophecy is simply unmissable.
The Führer's Prophecy by Brian Klein (Spirit Entertainment) is out now on Amazon, priced £8.99 in paperback and audiobook formats, and £2.99 as an eBook. For more information, visit www.brianklein.tv or follow Brian Klein on Instagram.
Q&A INTERVIEW WITH THRILLER AUTHOR BRIAN KLEIN
Brian Klein has been a lifelong fan of the thriller genre, which has enabled him to utilise all the crowd-pleasing elements that work best for his own novels while discounting the rest. In this exclusive interview, we speak to the acclaimed TV director-turned-author to find out more about his approach to writing killer thrillers.
Q. You write in the thriller genre, which is one of the rare types of fiction that appeals to women as much as men. Why do you think this genre is so popular with readers?
A. I think thrillers tick a lot of boxes and readers of both sexes enjoy page turners that keep them guessing and which are impossible to put down. It’s wonderful escapism from everyday life.
Q. Was it your own love of thrillers that led you to writing a thriller, or did the story come into your head and directed you to the genre?
A. I think a bit of both, to be honest. I’d had the idea for over 25 years and my love of thrillers meant I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it, when it came to turning the idea into an actual book.
Q. Now having two novels under your belt, and a third on the way, what is the most important thing an author needs to achieve when writing a thriller?
A. Keep the story believable – constantly look for a way to surprise the reader with unforeseen twists and tell a great story!
Q. You never had any particular aspirations to become an author, but thanks to popular demand you are now completing a trilogy, ‘The Reich Trilogy’. How does being known as a best-selling author now fit with you?
A. It’s a very strange fit as for 35 years I’ve been known as a TV director, but I have to admit I love the fit and I hope that’s where my future lies.
Q. There is also a TV adaptation of your first novel, The Counterfeit Candidate, in the works. Being a TV director yourself, how does this feel?
A. It’s very weird, exciting, and stressful all at the same time as it’s already become apparent to me that the adaptation will vary from the book in many ways – and sometimes I won’t like it!
Thriller author Brian Klein has a host of celebrity fans including former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who is seen here with him at the launch event for the first novel in The Reich Trilogy, The Counterfeit Candidate.
Q. As an author of popular fiction, how do you handle such sensitive subjects as Hitler and the Nazis?
A. However hateful the subjects maybe, I try to portray them as three-dimensional, believable characters who are credible.
Q. Your first novel featured some incredible scenes, and likewise with The Führer's Prophecy. What is your favourite, and do you think your career as a BAFTA award-winning TV director has given you an edge in writing dramatic set-pieces?
A. So hard to pick a favourite scene but perhaps the penultimate chapter in The Führer’s Prophecy where Vargas and the Black Scorpion come face to face for the final time is my favourite.
Q. How did writing The Führer's Prophecy differ to writing The Counterfeit Candidate? Was it easier, or perhaps more challenging in certain ways?
A. It was a different experience as I never expected The Counterfeit Candidate to be published whereas I was a bit more self-conscious writing the sequel as I knew it would be read. Overall, I found the sequel easier to write, as I was more confident in my writing style.
Q. Given your books have an historical element to them, presenting an alternative history, how much background research have you had to put it?
A. I spend a great deal of time researching history and historical events in order to ensure that all my facts and ideas are drenched in realty.
Q. As a big fan of thrillers, which one thriller novel wows you more than any other, and why?
A. Probably The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown as I loved the fact it was a world-wide phenomenon that I could share with millions of other readers.
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