Why a Booktrail?
1960s – This gives a unique view of Salzburg during times of war and spies…
The Salzburg Connection
What you need to know before your trail
Twenty one years ago, the Nazis hid a sealed chest somewhere in the dark and gloomy waters of the Finistersee – a lake surrounded by the tall and imposing Austrian Alps
Not many people know of this box’s existence but Richard Bryant, a British agent does. One morning before anyone wakes up, he goes out in the early morning fog in the search for the box and for the truth. Like a pandora’s box however, this lake doesn’t give up its secrets without consequences..
Travel Guide
Written in the 1960’s this book is a spy novel set in and around the city of Salzburg at a time when the cold war was at its peak and suspicions of the Nazis still infiltrated much of Europe.
The fact that an old box hidden at the bottom of an Austrian Lake could reveal war documents is an enticing premise. Something which could be true and potentially devastating depending on what was found. Rumours are flying around that it contains plans to rebuild some aspects of the regime and the worry of what the contents might be used for and by which rogue state are alarming.
The bleak waters of the lake are calm on the surface but what lies beneath?
“The lake was cold, black, evil no more than five hundred yards in length, scarcely two hundred in breadth, a crooked stretch of glassy, clam shadowed by the mountain sides”
The setting of the 1960s is evoked by many details which add to the overall sense of intrigue, suspicion and doubt. Of course the very time meant that a soy working then did not have the technological tools he would have now such as phones or computers making this a mystery for its time.
“It might seem ridiculous to expect that the Nazis – after all these years – were still posting guards around here, or that they had possibly installed a man in a nearby village like Unterwald to patrol Finstersee.”
Europe in the 1960s must have been a time of suspicion and unease with each country truing to guess the moves of another. with the Soviets on one side of the curtain, the Americans on the other, the Europeans in the middle and the Germans smarting over Hitler’s demise would have set the scene for some dark dealings..
Where Next?
