The Seventh Doctor makes frequent visits to World War II: The Curse of Fenric on tv, Colditz on audio, Timewyrm: Exodus and this book in the Virgin New Adventures. We begin this book with one of this Doctor's great manipulative plans. Roz and Chris are working with British intelligence in London, Benny is undercover with the Resistance in Guernsey, and the Doctor is seeking a particularly genius Nazi scientist. Things go horribly wrong, of course, and as happens all to often in the New Adventures, it leads to a companion getting tortured. The book features a strong narrative though, one of the most easily readable New Adventures, with great character moments for Benny, Roz, and Chris. It's also close to being a pure historical, with The Butterfly Effect and the Doctor's hubris being the main antagonists outside of the Nazis. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2170151.html

This is a New Adventure with the Seventh Doctor, Benny, Ros and Chris, with flashbacks to the Seventh Doctor's travels with Mel (which have never merited a full-length spinoff novel of their own). I realised about a qurter of the way in that I had heard an audio adaptation of it several years ago, one of the very first Big Finish audios about Benny, with her husband Jason replacing most of the other regular characters. The audio was good, but the book is also very good; too many Second World War stories, and not just in the Whoniverse, reach for easy cliches, and although the nastiest characters here are German and the nicest (apart from regulars) are Brits, there is a decent level of ambiguity all the way thorugh - including about the Doctor's role. Ros in particular gets some good moments as an authoritative black woman officer impacting the establishment in London, and poor Benny gets some nasty torture at the hands of the occupiers of Guernsey. The New Adventures seem to have been passing through a good phase generally at this point, in early 1996, though the end must have been already looming. ( )

I'd heard the Jacqueline Rayner audio drama of this novel, which changes it from a Doctor Who story to a Professor Bernice Summerfield one (in fact, it's literally my current car listen), and I've always found it quite excellent, so I was eager to read the book, both to see if it was as good, and to see just how Rayner turned a story featuring the seventh Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz into a story featuring Benny and Jason-- with a good deal less "running time"! It was every bit as good as the audio-- I'd be hard-pressed to pick the better one, because they both do what they set out to do exceedingly well. Parkin captures all four protagonists perfectly, and his story's many subplots (the Doctor scheming, Benny tortured, Chris as action hero, and Roz in love) are all very different yet cohesive. The audio drama leaves Benny's part largely intact (though it gives her some of the Doctor's), and what remains of the Doctor's, Chris's, and Roz's plotlines wind up dumped on Jason. I'm starting to think I need more Lance Parkin in my library. (originally written January 2008)