The Spy Who SAT and Waited

New York, NY: Putnam Publishing Group, 1975. Hard cover. Good. No dust jacket. Ex-library. Signed by previous owner. The Spy Who SAT and Waited by Campbell, R Wright Hard cover. Putnam Publishing Group (1975) BOOK SIZE 5 1/2 X 8 1/4 Good. No dust jacket. Ex-library. Signed by previous owner. Ex Libary book,... The Spy Who SAT and Waited by Campbell, R Wright Hard cover. Putnam Publishing Group (1975) BOOK SIZE 5 1/2 X 8 1/4 Good. No dust jacket. Ex-library. Signed by previous owner. Ex Libary book, library markings 318 p.....Wilhelm Oerter, a middling trading The Spy Who SAT and Waited by Campbell, R Wright Hard cover. Putnam Publishing Group (1975) BOOK SIZE 5 1/2 X 8 1/4 Good. No dust jacket. Ex-library. Signed by previous owner. Ex Libary book, library markings 318 p.....Wilhelm Oerter, a middling trading company clerk, becomes "a spy by default" for the Nazis thanks to his "incredible talent for mediocrity and anonymity." The unassuming, insular Bavarian-a man with neither ambition nor convictions-maintains his cover after the Armistice of 1918. When directed to penetrate the Orkney Islands, Wilhelm becomes Will Hartz, a listening post of an innkeeper stationed just right to pick up information about the British Home Fleet harbored at Scapa Flow. A stoic, he still has to combat "isolation that...threatened to suffocate and engulf him." He eventually marries a reformed prostitute and becomes both a good father and contented citizen in 1934. With a wireless-and mixed emotions-he begins to transmit tidbits culled from his drunkard father-in-law. The late-blooming deep plant is taken out of cold storage when he assists in the kidnapping of an anti-Nazi journalist. However, the moment of truth comes after the outbreak of war when 'Willum' sends a message to have the unguarded fleet torpedoed...and then frantically rescues many of the injured men. Although he's personally decorated by Hitler, he becomes wistful and resigned until he's reinducted and subsequently killed. This is a slow-gripping, ably-constructed tale about that most tragic of human conditions: irresolution.