SOUTHEAST MO. MAN SCORES WITH FIRST NOVEL (A BOOK REVIEW)

Former Southeast Missouri resident Wade Stevenson has woven a tale of adventure, betrayal and intrigue in "The Salzdorf Wellspring."

The 228-page novel was published this fall by Rodgers and Nelson Publishing Co.

Stevenson is a retired special agent from the U.S. Department of Defense Investigative Service, who was also an armed guard and courier with the Armed Forces Courier Service (AFCS) in Europe, as well as serving as a U.S. Intelligence officer. Stevenson drew on this background to draw the reader into his world of military and civilian intelligence surveillance and intrigue.

Stevenson grew up in Chaffee and Ancell and still has family in Scott County. One of his characters, Sgt. Steve Scott, is also from Ancell. Several scenes and flashbacks take place in Ancell and Illmo (predecessors, along with Fornfelt, of today's Scott City), as well as Cape Girardeau County.

"The Salzdorf Wellspring" is loosely based on a case Stevenson investigated. (Unlike many he has worked on, Stevenson was not sworn to secrecy in this case.) The fictitious plot centers around a gigantic cache of stolen treasure hidden by Adolph Hitler in an abandoned salt mine near Salzdorf, Germany. Such a hiding place may well exist; thousands of pieces of priceless art and other treasures are still missing after the Nazis raided the personal collections of Jews and other wealthy individuals, as well as national museums in occupied territories.

The novel basically operates in three time periods 1928, 1939 and 1956.

Much of it involves the Hans Mueller family. Hans Mueller, local farmer and upholsterer, who lost an arm during World War I, is approached by the Gestapo in 1939. He is hired and sworn to absolute secrecy for a clandestine mission. Mueller unlocks and keeps watch over an abandoned salt mine near town, as troops load mysterious boxes and bags at strange hours. When the mine is filled to capacity, Mueller is shot and left for dead. Eventually, everyone with a knowledge of the secret cache is to be erased but Hitler himself.

Mueller, however, survives and flees Germany with his family -- and one bag of priceless jewels he had buried after the troops had inadvertently left it behind during a previous shipment. In Switzerland, the family cashes in the jewels and becomes instant millionaires.

Fitted with the name "Miller" and a bogus identification, they make a perilous journey through Vichy France and on to a new life on the American West Coast. There the oldest boy, Karl, grows up and joins the Untied States Air Force. A seemingly demonic anti-Semitic from birth, Karl's hatred of Jews, gays and the handicapped was nurtured in the Hitler Youth organization.

The scene then shifts to 1956. We meet several noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in the U.S. Air Force who soon wind up in an Air Force mail operation in England. Some of the NCOs and officers, though, are actually government agents. A small mail-stealing operation is being investigated, as well as a larger black market ring of priceless art. These art objects had not been seen since the late 1930s, when the Nazis confiscated them.

One of the NCOs is Sgt. Steve Scott, from Ancell, Mo. Raised largely by his grandmother, Steve's fiancee LaRae Prentiss is the only person he had ever really loved -- or whom he felt had ever really loved him. They are planning a wedding later in the year, after she finishes high school. (Presumably Illmo-Fornfelt High.)

Without giving the plot away entirely, action revolves around Miller's continued black market art activities and his sadistic, murderous side which he has frequent opportunity to vent. (Hans Mueller/Miller, we learn, had traveled back to Germany in the early 1950s and bought the land containing the mine.) A wide array of undercover agents arrive at the mail squadron, disguised as regular military personnel.

Scott has to deal with gut wrenching personal heartbreak, as well as potential threats to his military career. In the end of the book he visits the newly-formed Scott City on his way to a new life as a secret agent. One hopes Stevenson brings Scott back for his promised sequel to "The Salzdorf Wellspring."

This is Stevenson's first foray into the world of fiction. He still lacks some of the polish of a veteran novelist, but turns in outstanding work for his first novel. In some places his care in getting military detail exactly right leads to a ponderous array of acronyms and titles for the non-military reader.

He also gives in (as many of us do) to ending chapters with foreboding sentences like "One of her fellow AMT airmen, without knowing it, would sorely regret that particular family addition." And "The three of them laughed and enjoyed one another's company during their return trip to Denham Studios. The fact that their number would shortly be reduced by one would have been the farthest thought from their minds." This habit seems to accelerate as the action increases and becomes somewhat annoying.

Still, Stevenson brings his characters to life with a deftness more akin to a veteran espionage author than a former agent. Despite the military atmosphere, often course language and the brevity of some characters' stay in the plot line, the reader finds himself caring about many of these individuals.

Some language is graphic and some of the violence quite gory. While it would not be recommended for the juvenile or the prim reader, it nevertheless tells an intriguing story and tells it well. The book would definitely be enjoyable to anyone who loves a good spy story or adventure novel -- or who would like to see Scott County described in such a book.