Flashpoint

by Wilbur Smith Book 6 in the Assegai Sequence series.

First published 2026

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2.5(5)

Leros, 1943, and Kenya and the United States in 1946. Saffron Courtney is ordered to extract a Jewish scientist whose knowledge is important to the Allied war effort from the besieged Dodecanese island of Leros. The Leros mission draws on the failed Dodecanese campaign, where Allied forces attempted to hold strategically important islands after Italy’s surrender.

After the war, accusations concerning Gerhard’s conduct under the Nazi regime are used to blackmail Saffron into another mission. Her effort to find the scientist again forces her to revisit wartime decisions while protecting her husband and family from a new network of political and criminal interests. The 1946 narrative shows how unresolved intelligence files and accusations of collaboration could be weaponised after victory, forcing Saffron to question who controls the official memory of the war.