Greg Iles, Rudolph Hess, and Led Zeppelinish Things

So this is weird. As noted previously, I have recently fallen in love with Greg Iles. First I read The Death Factory because it was short and I wanted to put my toe into the water before going for a big swim. And I liked it a lot so I went to Half-Price Books to see what titles they had in paperback, and my eye fixed on The Footprints of God. There's a title guaranteed to catch my attention. So I bought it, and read it very quickly. I started thinking that I would want a whole lot more of Mr. Iles, but I also decided that I wanted to do this properly, and that I would read his first book next. Which was Spandau Phoenix. And the library had a copy, so I picked it up and commenced to read. Pretty early on, though, I got a little distracted by a plot element which was just scandalously silly: Rudolph Hess,  Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler, flew an airplane to Scotland and parachuted to earth on a secret mission. Riiiiight. I have to admit that this was SO silly that it bogged me down for a few days before I was able to shrug it off and get back to the novel. 

I decided I was willing to forgive Mr. Iles for his silly manipulation of history. Until today. I was listening to When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall whilst riding my stationary bike, and I nearly fell off said bike when, in the course of a discussion of Aleister Crowley, reference was made to Rudolph Hess parachuting into Scotland. Holy fuck! 

Times 3.

Holy Fuck the First: So that really happened? Sheesh, man, I wouldn't have been more surprised if you'd told me that Adolph Hitler ran the 50 yard dash in the 1936 Olympics. And won the gold. With Jesse Owens a distant second. In fact, I have to admit that I still wasn't convinced of the veracity of this anecdote until I read about it in Wikipedia and saw this picture 1

The wreckage of Rudolf Hess' Messerschmitt Bf 110D "VJ+OQ", Werk Nr 3869, after crashing at Bonnyton Moor, Scotland, on May 10th, 1941.

Holy Fuck the Second: So waitaminute. I happened to decide to read Spandau Phoenix first, even though I had a bunch of Greg Iles books in hand before I got that one from the library . . . and I just happened to pick up a Playaway of When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall . . . which was purely a chance pick-up, as I was just looking for something in that format so I could listen while I exercised. I'm not even all that interested in Led Zeppelin, actually. AND I picked up two books on Playaway at the time, the other being When the Killing's Done by T. Coraghessan Boyle, a writer I admire immensely . . . and a writer I've read previously, so I was actually anxious to read / hear this one. Why did I start with Led Zeppelin? Dunno. But there is a bit of a chain of coincidences which brought this Rudolph Hess Parachuting Venn Overlap into my existence.

Holy Fuck the Third: And what the hell is a biography of Led Zeppelin doing talking about Rudolph Hess anyway? Sheesh. I've got to say, if you're not impressed by THIS coincidence story, I just don't think you're impressable. 




1 Which is labeled thusly: "This artistic work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain." Hence my use of it here.