Book Review: Black Camelot

Book Review: 'Black Camelot' by Duncan Kyle

1 / 5 Stars

‘Black Camelot’ first was published in 1978; this Berkley Books edition (282 pp.) was issued in January, 1980. The cover artist is uncredited.

Author Kyle published a number of paperback thrillers and adventure novels in the 1970s and 1980s.

The cover for ‘Black Camelot’ presents the novel as a sort of ‘Castle Wolfenstein’ adventure, wherein a commando team must penetrate a Nazi redoubt where some sort of secret science fictional or supernatural program is under way, with the goal of ensuring victory for the Third Reich.

In fact, the novel is a bland and unrewarding World War Two espionage tale.

‘Black Camelot’ is set in early 1945, with the protagonist, Franz Rasch, recuperating from wounds received in the Ardennes campaign. A decorated member of the Waffen SS, Rasch is a past member of the commando team led by Otto Skorzeny, and participated in the rescue of Benito Mussolini in September 1943.

While dedicated to the Waffen SS, Rasch can see that the defeat of the Reich is imminent, and, hoping to escape Germany before its capitulation, accepts an assignment from Walter Schellenberg, the head of German foreign intelligence, to travel to Stockholm. Rasch is tasked with delivering documents to a Russian contact; these documents include a list of prominent Britons who, before the war, were engaged in commerce with the Third Reich, and in some cases, have continued to trade covertly with Nazi front companies. 

 

Schellenberg is hoping that the documents will enrage Stalin to such an extent that the Soviet leader withdraws from the war and gives Hitler a chance to focus on the British and American forces, and perhaps, battle with sufficient vigor to force a negotiated peace.

Upon his arrival in Stockholm things go badly for Rasch and he’s forced into an uneasy alliance with an Irish journalist named Joe Conway. The two men travel to Ireland and embark on a campaign to blackmail those British industrialists who are on Schellenberg’s list. Provided the accused pay up, thousands of pounds will be deposited in Rasch and Conway’s bank accounts, leaving the former SS man with sufficient funds to start his life over again.

 

After considerable meandering in the plot, Rasch and Conway wind up coerced into participating in a commando raid of Heinrich Himmler’s redoubt, the ‘Black Camelot’ of the novel’s title, Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia (a real-life structure). The raid’s goal: recover a master list of both American and British collaborators, before Himmler can exploit the list in a last-ditch effort to halt the Allied war effort. 

 

But what the commando team doesn’t know is that Himmler has his own plans for the fate of Wewelsburg, and a team of SS engineers is heading for the castle……….and a violent confrontation with Franz Rasch.

 

‘Black Camelot’ was a chore to finish. The first 217 pages of the novel are intended to emulate a Jack Higgins World War Two spy novel, and fail to do a convincing job of this. Much of the narrative is slowly paced, relies on dialogue and small intrigues, and offers little in the way of action. The closing chapters of the novel finally come round to detailing the commando raid, but this has a drawn-out, plodding quality. I was left with the feeling that I has spent far too much time invested in the book for what turns out to be an underwhelming denouement.

 

Hardcover and paperback copies of ‘Black Camelot’ still can be had for affordable prices, so if you decide to try this novel, it’s a low-risk acquisition. That said, you’re better off going with a Jack Higgins novel per se, than ‘Black Camelot.’