Publishers WeeklySet in 2003, Johnston's appealing fourth Alex Mavros mystery (after 2004's The Golden Silence) takes the half-Greek, half Scottish PI to the island of Crete, to locate Maria Kondos, actress Cara Parks's personal assistant, who's disappeared. Parks, who's starring in Freedom or Death, a film about the Nazi invasion and occupation of Crete, has refused to perform until Kondos is found. Mavros discovers that the filming has upset a number of people, including Rudolf Kersten, a German paratrooper who landed in Crete and later attempted to make reparations for Nazi atrocities, and David Waggoner, a British defender who now lives on the island. Mavros must deal with politics, corruption, and even the Cretan tradition of vendettas as secrets and grudges multiply.
