About Evasive Gold by Mauri Fredricks:
Evasive Gold is both a historical WWII novel and a present-day mystery seeking to reveal the past through a hunt for elusive clues from 75-80 years ago.
Two agents are each given a mission. One in 1940, and one in present-day New York. Evasive Gold follows both men – each in his own timeframe – until the final dramatic moment when their two paths converge.
In present-day New York, a false gold bar is discovered in the Federal Reserve Bank’s vault. Could the remaining fifty tons of the original party – supposedly smuggled out of Norway in 1940 – also be counterfeit? That gold cannot be tested in secret, so US Treasury Agent Jay Ricci is sent on a mission to Scandinavia: Find the gold.
But the secret has leaked, and someone else wants it badly. And Ricci is a fly in their ointment.
Eighty years earlier, Agent Peter Hagenmüller of Germany’s Abwehr Foreign Intelligence Service is stationed in Norway. He is given a mission: Follow the gold if the Norwegian resistance tries to smuggle it away.
In present-day Stockholm, Jay Ricci is flying blind and on his own except for two contacts: The smart and attractive Deborah Goodman at the US Embassy and Alec Henning, an American expat with an obscure past and a questionable reputation – and a hidden aura of power.
And Ricci needs all the help he can get.
The hunt moves from the streets of Stockholm, to Oslo, and on to the mountains of Norway. But gradually the key to it all emerges. Ricci must learn to understand the man from the past: Peter Hagenmüller.
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Author Bio:
Mauritz Fredriksen (Mauri Fredricks) was born in Norway, but grew up in the United States, the son of immigrant parents. He attended a number of schools in different parts of the country as his father was moved around by the Fish and Wildlife Service as a captain of a research vessel. The family finally settled in Massachusetts.
He earned an SB degree from MIT in Humanities and Engineering, with a concentration in History and Comparative Literature. During that time, he had also spent a year at the University of Oslo studying Norwegian Literature. He also served a three-year enlistment in the US Army which included a tour in Germany.
Most of his career has been in IT, first in the Boston area and then in Norway after he and his wife Astrid moved back to Oslo. He earned a further history degree (Cand. Mag.) from the University of Oslo, specializing in Economic History. He has also worked several years free-lance as a translator (Norwegian to English).
During the first few years of his retirement, Astrid and he lived aboard their sailboat during the temperate seasons, sailing and exploring the coasts of Scandinavia.