The Last Nazi

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Fourth Procedure comes a riveting thriller about a deadly virus, born of the past, that threatens to destroy the present. The Last Nazi seamlessly weaves genetics, terrorism, and the very human struggle of right and wrong into a terrifying and unforgettable story. Melissa Gale is an attractive, ambitious lawyer and investigator for the Office of Special Investigations, the Justice Department’s “Nazi Hunters.” Her quarry, known only by the name “Adalwolf,” was the brilliant young protégé of Dr. Josef Mengele, the Butcher of Auschwitz. Presumed dead for almost fifty years, Adalwolf has suddenly reappeared in the United States to take the lives of three people in a chilling, unusual way.

Melissa stalks Adalwolf to bring him to justice, only to discover that he is actually stalking her. She has something he wants: a personal medical history that holds the key to his plan for the ultimate crime. Using a deadly biological virus born of the genetic projects started in the Nazi labs, Adalwolf is about to unleash the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Melissa Gale and the baby she is carrying could be the key to his success. Trapped in his nightmare scheme, she is forced to fight for her life. The tension builds unbearably as Melissa’s race to save her baby and stop Adalwolf from carrying out his plan forces her to confront the boundaries of good and evil---not only in him, but in herself.

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• Title : The Last Nazi
• ISBN-13: 9781429992534
• Author: Stan Pottinger
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 08/01/2003
• Sold by: ST MARTINS / MPS

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

It's difficult to come up with a fresh Nazi scenario without resorting to the cloning gambit, but Pottinger (The Fourth Procedure; A Slow Burning) succeeds admirably in this hair-raising thriller. His villain, Adalwolf, the 16-year-old foster son of Dr. Josef Mengele, joins the short list of fiction's baddest bad boys from the very first sentence. The setting is Auschwitz, Christmas Eve, 1944: "He heard a soft voice, a little girl's voice, singing quietly in the operating room. When it stopped, Adalwolf told her to keep singing, there was no need to be afraid, everything was going to be fine." The reader understands that nothing from here on out is going to be fine.

Fifty-eight years later, gutsy Melissa Gale, a lawyer for the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, joins a SWAT team as they blast through the door of an apartment where the elderly Adalwolf is hiding. Melissa has been hunting this particular Nazi for five years, and he's taunted her throughout the chase. Adalwolf has murdered three people in the process of cooking up a deadly virus that threatens to kill every Jew in the world. The concept of a designer virus dedicated to wiping out one particular ethnic or racial group has been fielded, but Pottinger's take is by far the best of the bunch. Add a kidnapped child, more cold-blooded murder and a pregnant heroine who may be carrying the deadly plague along with her baby, and you've got a lethal prescription for a stay-up-all-night read. Agents, Joni Evans and Owen Laster. (Aug.) Forecast: St. Martin's is laying on a four-city author tour and a national radio advertising campaign to get the word out on this one. That plus Pottinger's past readership should push him onto some lists.

Library Journal

In 1944, Adalwolf, the foster son of Dr. Mengele, is responsible for calming children who are slated to undergo fatal medical experiments at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Fifty-eight years later, Adalwolf is living in the United States under an assumed identity. In public, he is a doctor with his own fertility clinic; in private, he is working on a deadly virus that functions only when certain genetic markers are present. Melissa Gale, a lawyer for the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (the "Nazi hunters"), is trying to have a baby with her journalist husband, David. What seems at first a well-developed subplot soon reveals itself to be a major issue. Melissa learns that she is about to be turned into an ethnic biological weapon of mass destruction, capable of wiping out the 13 million Jews in the world. On this premise, rendered believable by thorough research and convincing characterization, Pottinger (The Fourth Procedure) spins a tale that grabs the reader by the throat as it takes stunning twists and turns in its drive to a heart-stopping conclusion. Be prepared to feel horror for a villain who is not only the last Nazi but also one of the most terrifying.

Meet the Author

Stan Pottinger is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He practiced law in California and served as director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and as assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C. He has argued four cases before the Supreme Court. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Fourth Procedure and A Slow Burning. Mr. Pottinger has three grown children and lives in South Salem, New York.

Read an Excerpt - The Last Nazi

CHRISTMAS EVE, 1944 Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp Poland. He heard a soft voice, a little girl's voice, singing quietly in the operating room. When it stopped, Adalwolf told her to keep singing, there was no need to be afraid, everything was going to be fine. Twelve-year-old Ben didn't need to guess what was going on in there. He knew.Sitting in the darkened anteroom, Ben stared out the frosted windows, anxiously waiting for a kapo to come and take him back to his barracks. It was ten o'clock at night, and a blanket of snow had turned the camp unusually quiet. The boilers in the clinic had been turned off, leaving it bone-chillingly cold, and Crematorium V was working at reduced capacity so that more SS officers could be home with their families.

Ben wondered why Adalwolf, the sixteen-year-old foster son of Dr. Mengele, wasn't one of them, but evidently this was where he preferred to be. Apparently this was his Christmas present to himself.Ben nervously fingered an ivory pendant hanging on a chain around his neck, then unwrapped a piece of chocolate and held it lightly on his fingertips to keep it from melting. The door to the operating room was slightly ajar, casting a long shard of light across the anteroom floor. He could hear Adalwolf still trying to convince the little girl that everything was fine, but to no avail. And no wonder: That was Ben's job. Lacking the warmth to tell a comforting lie, Adalwolf had conscripted him to calm the children who were about to undergo one of Dr. Mengele's procedures. Sometimes Ben did it by teaching them a song; sometimes by giving them a piece of chocolate or a toy that Dr. Mengele had made available. Regardless of how he did it, he knew what to do--so why hadn't Adalwolf asked him to talk to the girl? Why bring him here if he wasn't going to use him?He ran his hand through his dirty hair. Maybe he should knock and let him know he was here.

Then he caught himself.Rule number one in the camp: Don't volunteer. For anything. Ever.He wiggled his toes nervously in his thin shoes. Snow had melted down his ankles, turning the leather soggy. He'd been there for nearly half an hour. Where was that kapo?The snowflakes were coming down harder now, blanketing the muddy paths and powdering the trees in the Little Wood. Ben wondered if he'd ever see another snowfall in his hometown of Vakhnovka, wondered if he'd smell the flowers in the cornfields in spring. He wondered about many things until he remembered it was better not to wonder about any.He lifted the ivory pendant--it had come from a woman prisoner--and kissed it for good luck, even though he didn't believe in luck anymore. Survival in this place didn't depend on good fortune, hard work, or any of the virtues he'd been taught as a child. Survival depended on one thing: obedience. Calming frightened children was simply doing what he'd been told, although, as far as he was concerned, it was also a good deed.

If ever he was in their shoes, he hoped someone would do the same for him.He exhaled impatiently, then stood up and crept over to the operating-room door, careful not to touch it for fear of making it creak. What was there to be curious about? He'd been inside the room many times and knew it well: the holding cots, the operating tables, the metal autopsy islands, the countertops with bell-shaped jars and stainless-steel tools, the formaldehyde, the gooseneck lamps lighting bare walls.He peeked through the crack and saw the little girl sitting on a sheet-covered gurney, shivering and scrawny from rations of stale bread, margarine, and black coffee. In her hands was a red-and-silver Christmas tree ornament that reminded Ben of a fishing pole bobber about to be dropped into a summer pond. A summer in a different life, a pond in a forgotten world.Adalwolf's white lab coat moved in front of the slender opening, blocking Ben's view.

Even though he was only sixteen, Adalwolf's uniform and chiseled face gave him the bearing of a grown-up Nazi doctor."Sing to me," Adalwolf said, prompting the girl with a few bars of "Silent Night."Instead, she sat quietly."Come, come, Rochele," Adalwolf said. "If you sing, everything will be fine." He held her hand and, after a little more cajoling, she stopped sniffling and tried again."Stille Nacht ... Heilige Nacht ..."The little girl kept singing softly, clutching the Christmas tree ornament against her belly."Alles schaft, einsam wacht ..."Ben heard the hiss of a bottle being opened. As he craned his neck to see where Adalwolf had gone, tears filled his eyes, some from the chemical fumes, some from the ache in his heart. He squeezed the pendant through his shirt and stuffed it into his mouth. The aroma of melted chocolate on his fingers mingled with the smell of chloroform.The little girl was singing the last stanza now: "Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh." Ben held his breath, closed his eyes, and waited for what was to happen next.It didn't happen.The door opened abruptly, bumping Ben's shoulder and jolting open his eyes.

Adalwolf stood in the doorway looking down at him, a chloroformfilled syringe held in one rubber-gloved hand while the other reached for Ben's chocolate-covered fist. He pried the boy's fingers off the pendant, lifted it from around his neck, and held it up between them."You shouldn't have taken it, Ben," he said, dropping it into his lab coat pocket.Ben volunteered nothing. His flushed cheeks did it for him."Don't worry," Adalwolf said, "your punishment will fit the crime." He laid his hand on Ben's shoulder and pushed him into the room.