Description
The Grand Duchy of Drachenschweig, ruled benignly by Dowager Grand Duchess Margarethe VI, a former schoolmarm from Keokuk, Iowa, is a small country in Europe bounded on one side by imagination and on the other side by absurdity, and entirely encircled by whimsy. In 1953, as the Cold War is building up a head of steam, Margarethe and the grand duchy reluctantly become embroiled in international intrigue: a plot to snatch an East German politician from a prison in East Berlin. It is a truth universally acknowledged that spywork consists chiefly of people jumping in and out of beds in pursuit of state secrets, and Dragon in Amber acknowledges that reality. Doing the jumping are: a zaftig Israeli ambassador, a hapless East German spy, a misfit American preacher, Drachenschweig's one-and-only secret agent, a Dudley Do-Right-style Army officer, and two princesses-one a mysterious femme fatale and the other neither mysterious nor fatale, but definitely wholly femme. Cold War events threaten to topple the always tottery scheme, but by then the characters have toppled the greater barriers to romance and love. Roger K. Miller, previously the author of the novel Invisible Hero, is a freelance writer and critic whose work has appeared in numerous metropolitan newspapers and other publications. He and his wife Nancy, parents of three grown children, live in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.
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