Review by Frank Plowright

Tommy Flynn was reluctantly co-opted onto a small international squad of fighters who infiltrated a Nazi base on a Pacific island still infested with dinosaurs. That was summer 1943, and although the team emerged victorious by the end, it wasn’t the mission planned. Read all about it in Half Past Danger 1. By winter Tommy is storming a castle in the Austrian Alps, although going solo isn’t working nearly as well. It seems the threat of the Nazis unleashing a dinosaur-based virus hasn’t been entirely stopped after all, and however reluctant some team members may be to work with former partners, it seems they have little choice.

Stephen Mooney is halfway through Dead to Reichs before the issues between the team members have been sorted out, and although the character interactions are well scripted, it’s not what readers really want from Half Past Danger. Then again, there’s no point in just repeating the first story, so this time although there are dinosaurs, their role is diminished, there are more ninjas than before and Mooney has come up with a new threat exactly fitting the pulp aesthetic. It’s exquisitely designed.

When it kicks in, the action zips along and is well choreographed, but the people are again sometimes stiff and distractingly awkward. However, from halfway it’s a headrush all the way to the shocker of an ending.

Because of the extended lead-in, Dead to Reichs doesn’t quite match the pulp thrills of the first outing, but anyone who enjoyed that probably won’t feel the quality’s dropped too far.