VOL 3
The Hunter Thompson series brings a new narrator to the story in Volume 3. It is Hunter himself who seems to be experiencing a magical mystery tour in a favorite bar in the Jerome Hotel in Colorado. “If this is some sort of hallucination it is by far the best ever. Everything is clear, but weird.”
“I have reawakened from a ridiculously long slumber.” He feels like Mac in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Maybe he has been locked up, he muses, and now he is arguing with Nurse Ratchet over whether his boys can watch the World Series in the Commons at the psychiatric hospital.
Clarity of thought arrives after a few minutes of head tripping: “Currently I seem to be busy in my 21st year. Apparently I have been fighting Nazis with an old classmate from second grade, Jordan Josin. We have been pretty damn successful. I feel proud of my imaginary younger self. I think it’s a great idea for me to spend some of my youth Nazi hunting. It will be good preparation for my later life.”
Hunter clarifies some things we’ve been reading about in Volumes 1 and 2. He zeros in on the history of how he and Jordan got started with Sister Ansilio and mentor Tom Charlebois.
We learn from Hunter why Sister Ansilio is so fervent in the cause. Her brother Johnny Cantone was a hero of the underground in France. He was Mr. French Resistance.
The boys have recently returned to London and they have received orders to go to Spain, with instructions to brush up on their Spanish and Death in the Afternoon by Mr. Hemingway.
Chapter 2 is “Picasso and Bullfighting.” Who knew the Nazis worked with Spain’s Franco dropping bombs in the town of Guernica, Spain.
Picasso’s mural Guernica was more than just a painting that depicted the horrors of war, Tom said. It was the work of an artist who was personally crushed when he saw pictures in the paper of the bombings that killed hundreds of people and destroyed a town.
We learn of the Schuler clan that supplied Hitler with steel, copper and metals for the making of the German war machine. Hitler offered the Schulers any industry or business in Spain they wanted. They selected bullfighting. So, again Hemingway returns to provide help to the young Nazi hunters.
Hunter and Jordan arrive in Madrid in the middle of May, 1959, during the bullfighting festival San Isidro Days. Hemingway is with an old friend and legendary matador Antonio Ordoñez. The plan is to save bullfighting for Spain and get rid of the Schuler Nazis.
When the work in Spain is complete, mentor Tom Charlebois sends Hunter and Jordan to Argentina for a well-deserved break and a chance to go back to live with real gauchos down in the Patagonia.
Hunter returns to the place he loves, Argentina. “Jordan, you have outdone yourself on this one. I love this place.”
The boys spend Christmas in Patagonia staying with the Bonavilla family and help with the cattle drive into forest and mountain areas and finally arrive at the grasslands of “El Gran Señor,” Mr. Hermosa.
During the return ride to the Bonavilla estancia Hunter and Jordan learn about the extensive history of German migration to Argentina. They learn of real Nazis and an SS commander war criminal living openly in the Alpine village town of Bariloche. There are rumors that Hitler and Eva Braun have visited the area.
Despite being on a work-break, the boys end up doing Nazi surveillance in Patagonia.
“I’m afraid we’ll never finish with the Nazi work. Not in this lifetime. I may have to wait for my next life to be a gaucho,” Hunter sighed.
As the Nazi hunters exit Argentina, they are headed to Canada to investigate a former SS guard who was a ruthless killer.
“What’s special about this one? What’s his name and what did he do?”
“That’s the problem. It’s her name. And she was an SS guard and a torturer who escaped justice. She was prosecuted for war crimes, but only some. We recently discovered she was at multiple camps during the war.”
An elaborate tracking effort takes place in New York in the pursuit of Hermine Braunsteiner who was so mean and evil she was known as the Stomping Bitch.
Other female SS guards also escaped prosecution in Germany and Hunter and Jordan are dispatched to Pittsburgh to find Elsa Kallstadt who was an assistant to the vicious Juana Borman, known for using German Shepard dogs to attack innocents.
Back to Europe to follow the trail of thieves of the Baron Louis von Rothschild massive art collection. Canada, Vermont, Jamaica.
Later we learn a U.S. Senate investigation of the Cosa Nostra has discovered dangerous Nazi plans in California to collude with the infamous Japanese drug runners of Yakuza. More info on Nazis in California, mostly forgotten or unknown, Lansky and Hemingway return to help out.
Finally, the boys travel to Switzerland to reprise the Boudreaux brothers in an attempt to derail a German arms dealers with financial ties to Hitler funds. They receive help from Sherlock Holmes, in the role of the South African nobleman Duke Rudolph van der Kaap, who has the largest private legal army in Europe.
Of course, fans of Sherlock Homes will not overlook the events in Switzerland take place in the town of Meiringen, near Reichenbach Falls, which was where Holmes fought the evil genius Professor Moriarty in the Adventure of the Final Problem.
“People have a million questions about what happened here. It doesn’t matter, really. After all, I am here now. If I actually fell nearly 1,000 feet I don’t think I would still be in one piece.”