Product Description

On stage, with her angelic face and red hair swept into a French twist, Rebecca Benjamin appears younger than her 22 years, but her talent as a concert pianist has been developed beyond her years and her music charms audiences throughout Europe. As the story opens, Rebecca is about to leave the home she shares with her grandmother in Vienna and travel to Los Angeles for her sister Miriam’s wedding. But in LA, as Miriam is planning for her extravagant and traditional wedding, there is a neo-Nazi group residing in a compound they call ‘Winterhaven’ that has plans of their own for the young bride. The group’s leader, Magnus, who was once a member of Hitler’s inner circle, now in his old age has dreams of a new and more powerful Nazi regime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2082448 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

About the Author
This is Beth Asher's first novel.

Customer Reviews

A Lion-Hunter in Winterhaven
Fans of the return-of-the-Third-Reich subgenre will like Beth Asher's THE WINTERHAVEN SOLUTION. Nazis are the minority everyone cordially detests with a clear conscience. The top Nazi here, Magnus von Winter, is a close buddy of Hitler's who somehow never made it into the history books or onto Simon Wiesenthal's top ten. He's as detestable as anyone might want, even though he has social skills (master of disguise, performs sleight-of-hand) that would make him a much bigger hit at a small boy's birthday party than, say, Goering or Eichmann.
Winter's social skills are no match for those of the heroine, Rebecca Benjamin. This 20-something Austrian redhead is a concert pianist who can pick locks, solve chess problems, cook up a storm, conjure up psychic visions and -- almost forgot! -- is blessed with "firm, colossal breasts." Rebecca, it's safe to say, would be an even bigger hit at a birthday party for OLDER boys.
After Winter and his Nazi rabble murder her sister, Rebecca swears vengeance. She's helped along by Doug Horne, a big game hunter who's fled Africa after beating a murder rap there, and has washed up in Beverly Hills. (Nice place to wash up!) Horne isn't nearly as bright as Rebecca (no one is) and he doesn't play piano, but he has a collection of REALLY BIG GUNS that the reader can just bet are going to come in mighty handy.
Winter and his Nazis have established their sinister hideout off the Central California coast, not far from Hearst's San Simeon. In fact, Winterhaven (as Winter has called it) is sort of the EVIL San Simeon. Like Hearst's, Winter's castle is patterned on the European model -- the model here being Himmler's Wewelsburg. But the parallel stops there. Winter doesn't have the huge library or the precious artworks, but Hearst didn't have the gas chamber, the concertina wire, the tannery (!), the livestock pens, the slaughterhouse or the strutting guards in SS uniforms.
If you guess that the book comes to its exciting conclusion on the frightening grounds of Winterhaven, or that lion-hunter Horne's arsenal doesn't remain inert in the trunk of his SUV, you've guessed correctly. You may also guess that Horne and Rebecca come to be more than just friends. Those firm, colossal breasts don't remain inert, either.
THE WINTERHAVEN SOLUTION is a fast-paced story with exotic characters you don't run into at the local supermarket. It will appeal to fans of THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL, MARATHON MAN and that classic horror film, THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN. The Nazis lose again, natch (you were expecting the book to end with a Fourth Reich?), but it's a close call, with plenty of hair-raising jeopardy for the good guys as they're hunted by the nasty minions of the maniacal Magnus von Winter.

The Winterhaven Solution
Evil with a passion, to be specific, Magnus Von Winter, a diabolical genius and master craftsman at all things malevolent, has "set up shop" at his elaborate compound, Winterhaven. The point of it all? He and his son, Brutus will continue what Hitler began in Europe, i.e. the final elimination of the Jews-this time, however, in America.

Rebecca Benjamin seems to have everything going for her. She is a beautiful young Jewish woman and world-renowned pianist. Rebecca has traveled from Vienna, where she resides, to Los Angeles, California to be with her sister, Miriam, who is marrying into a prominent Jewish family. However, Magnus, in keeping with his ugly plot, murders the young sister and it is then that we begin to learn far more about Rebecca and well-kept family secrets.

Rebecca finds herself on a one-woman quest to find out why her sister was so suddenly taken from her. Along the way, we realize that this is a woman whose passion to learn the reason for her sister's murder is matched only by Magnus' passion to have committed it.

So the "contest" between good and evil begins, not in a philosophical sense, but in a down-to-earth "root for the good guy" adventure. And while we must give Magnus and Brutus credit for having carried out their plan successfully so far (you should note that Miriam is not his first victim), they have not met an adversary like Rebecca before. Her tenacity, alone, keeps us cheering her on. But she is also smart and she has met a new friend who, we hope, has a propensity for heroism and, of course, love.

The unexpected events, unfurled throughout the story, surprise both Rebecca and the reader. Sometimes we know more than she knows. However, it is during those times that this exciting book draws the reader more than ever to be a teammate hopeful that she does not lose her nerve or her obsession to find the truth.

Simply put, this book both well written and electrifying, is first-rate.

Serial killer novel that spans continents and decades
The Winterhaven Solution is the perfect solution for readers who are concerned about neo-Nazis and who like high culture in a serial-killer novel. Viennese concert pianist Rebecca Benjamin confronts murder, conspiracy and hidden problems from her past when she flies from Austria to Los Angeles for the wedding of her "ausgewanderte" sister, Miriam. Ecstasy reins: Her expatriate sister is set to marry the son of a billionaire developer. But shortly after Rebecca's arrival, Miriam goes missing. When her body is found, the circumstances suggest her murder was an anti-Semitic hate crime. In too short a time, police and FBI interest in the crime fade and Rebecca's future in-laws abandon her. But Rebecca does not give up on her sister's murder. Brought up by concert-pianist Grossmutter, Lilli, and by her Germanic housekeeper, Herta, Rebecca holds herself to high standards. She presses on, receiving only occasional help from the developer's architect. Around the middle of the book, the story takes an amazing turn and the race against the serial killer(s) begins. Rebecca Benjamin is a new kind of heroine - more beautiful than a Beverly Hills Barbie, but she doesn't make use of it, a classical musician with perfect technique and recall, yet fetchingly feminine, and a multi-linguist with the right skills to uncover neo- and old-time Nazi monsters at work.