Overview

"Little Anton is a gripping historical novel series that discloses covert technological inventions and the prominent leaders who exploited them during the turbulent years leading up to WWII and the Battle of Norway in 1940. Part love story and part dark satire, the book masterfully interweaves a fictional adventure within factual reportage, revealing in greater detail why Adolf Hitler tasked his personal hero Professor Ferdinand Porsche and his brilliant engineering mind to build the world's fastest, almost invincible racecars and potent military machines. The book tracks the life of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche while Hitler rises to power. Porsche and his family are pacifists, but like many industrialist families, they get caught up in Germany's ""economic miracle"" during the Great Depression and its aftermath. With Hitler's patronage, Porsche becomes Germany's heralded ""Reich Designer,"" creating the Volkswagen Beetle and Auto Union's futuristic Grand Prix racing cars, which later evolved into the Audi car brand after WWII. ​ Along with Dr. Porsche, the central characters are the fictional Lady Beatrice Sunderland (Bea), an irreverent, naughty British aristocrat, and Lutz Becker, a dashing young Bavarian racecar driver from quite humble origins. These two madcap star-crossed opposites intertwine when WWII breaks out, the attraction as inevitable as the fearsome conflict itself. Lady Bea, a cynical, freewheeling, cold-hearted daredevil pilot who emulates feminist aviatrices Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson, and Beryl Markham, is the daughter of Lord Briggs Sunderland, a tortured veteran of The Great War and close friend and confidant of Winston Churchill, Bea's maternal granduncle. Bea undergoes harsh SIS training to become a British spy and is sent to Germany to gain intelligence on clandestine German rearmament. Lutz Becker, a young member of the National Socialist Motorcorps (NSKK) motorcycle division, gains Porsche's patronage and becomes a pro auto racer in international Grand Prix competitions, Hitler and Goebbels' prized propaganda coup. The brazen adventures of Lady Bea and Lutz take readers through the grim scope of early wartime destruction, the insanity of Himmler's occult-driven SS, and the secret plotting for material gain by corporate and political leaders around the world. The Little Anton series will continue with the sequel entitled Lion, Tiger, Bear. This mystery thriller is set amid the Desert War of 1942-3, where the hunt is on for a secret Nazi SS mining operation and aircraft base in Iraq directly linked to Germany's multiple atomic bomb programs."

Full Product Details

9780578599014

Table of Contents

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews: A historical thriller... a propulsive war story. Engineers across Europe ... refuse to sit idly as the Germans steamroll the Grand Prix--and some suspect that they're using their new technologies in warlike ways... The author offers loving details about the Royal Air Force's Hurricane Mk I ( Time to 15,000 FT: 6.3 MIN ), and about Me-109 fighters, which come equipped with the newest and most powerful version of the Mercedes 601 engine. Enter Lady Beatrice Bea Sunderland, an Englishwoman who loves speed--and especially, piloting fast airplanes. She's recruited by the British government to infiltrate German racing's inner circle and find out just what sort of schemes may be underway involving new tech. It turns out that the schemes are many, indeed, and it's also revealed that the Nazis have ties to American industrialists and even the Illuminati; they also seem to be obsessed with occult practices. Sunderland undergoes rigorous training before embarking on her adventure, but will it be enough to save her and her country from the wicked forces at play? Brian O'Connor, VP, Public Affairs, Citizens Energy: Even as a youngster, John Warner was rabidly curious, mechanically gifted, and historically informed. In Little Anton, the melange of his unusual talents produces a rollicking love narrative of cars, cads, and cults improbably set in pre-World War II Nazi Germany. I had the pleasure of reviewing John's early creative efforts during his student years but his flights of rhetorical and historical fancy refused to be wrestled to earth by something as pedestrian as grades. Little has changed. Who else could plant Dr. Porsche and British spies and SS creeps in a Grand Prix rally that both entertains and educates? Only in Warner world do you come away from his crackling prose with insights into both the human heart and the internal combustion engine. Bill Anderson, CEO, Early American Auto Repair: I quite enjoyed the book Little Anton by John Warner IV. There is something in it for everyone, and I do mean everyone. It has all the great ingredients, suspense, mystery, sex, drugs, drama, and great portrayals of some of the most ingenious engineering of that time. It also gives insight on the bizarre events in and around WWII. My father was a WW2 pilot, and I am an enthusiast of early automotive and aviation history and the book takes you right into that world in spades. An enjoyable and exciting read indeed!

Author Information

"John W. Warner IV is a writer and gentleman farmer whose passion for history, vintage cars, and the unsung heroes of WWII inspired two large-scale creative ventures: a DVD documentary series on the early bootlegging days of NASCAR, The Golden Era of NASCAR, and a historical novel series, Little Anton. The son of retired Senator John W. Warner III (R-VA), former Secretary of the Navy and Chairman of the Armed Services Committee (KBE), and Catherine Mellon, banking heiress and daughter of philanthropist Paul Mellon (OSS, KBE), Warner says growing up in a family that had a seat at many of the most historically significant tables led to his insatiable quest to research and reveal hidden truths behind world events. A self-described ""gear head,"" Warner has spent most of his adult life quenching his thirst for knowledge about race cars, first as a professional Grand Am and American Le Mans Series racing driver (becoming, by his own admission, a ""middle of the pack man"" behind the wheel of a Corvette GT1 and a Porsche GT3R), and later researching the history of the sport for his NASCAR DVD series. In 2005, Warner's race car crashed into a wall at 100 MPH and he was medevaced off the course. During an intensive two-year-long recovery, he took a deep dive into researching the relationship between Ferdinand Porsche and the world's fastest, almost invincible war machines built during WWII. His research evolved into the historical novel series Little Anton. John and his wife Teba split their time between their Washington, D.C. area residence and their Virginia farm, where he is finishing the sequel to Little Anton, titled Lion, Tiger, Bear."

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available