The human pool

by Christopher Petit

During the war, Willia Schmidt traded in blackmarket leather for Nazi boots and information for US intelligence; he may have traded in Jews for both sides. He was reported dead in 1945 but almost sixty years later, two men think Willi Schmidt might still be alive. One is a former SS officer now living in Frankfurt. The other is Joe Hoover, ex-intelligence officer for the corrupt American spymaster Alan Dulles. Now someone wants Hoover dead. Hoover begins to unravel a conspiracy that leads deep into his past. At each step, they find the shadow of Willi Schmidt and the spectre of WWII's most grotesque and enduring legacy - a trade in people.