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I’m pretty up to speed on the events of 1945 and the Russian advance into Berlin. Two years ago, I read the brilliant Berlin: The Downfall by Antony Beevor. Then, more recently, Giles Milton’s Checkmate in Berlin, which is very good on how the allied powers divided Berlin, the Russian attempt to blockade it completely and the remarkable organisation of the Berlin Air Lift. It’s a great account of how the Cold War began. Probably most chilling was Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which deals with Stalin’s actual family and the ‘family’ of ministers he gathered round him. Plenty of suspicion and fear, then The Terror of 1937 and again after the war. The slaughter of the innocent.
So, I was interested to read Katastrophe, a work of historical fiction about this same period. Sadly, I found nothing new in it and it failed to grip. Anyone who’s read Solzhenitsyn knows about life in the Gulag, so nothing there to shock. It was a fluid time, with people changing sides rapidly, some Germans wanting peace and plotting for it, others fanatically fighting a battle already lost. The Russians keen to nab German nuclear secrets. With spies and informers everywhere, who do you trust? What to make of one of the main characters, a Georgian who worked for Goebbels until he upset him and was sent East? Now he’s on his way back to Berlin but who knows what awaits him. Most characters expect to die at any moment.
London is suffering from the V2s and the weary Londoners want nothing but peace. The clever chaps at MI5 and MI6 already know that the peace will be one which Russia will dominate. Our man Moncrieff is sent to Switzerland on a very secret mission which is sabotaged in a way that suggests a tip-off. His colleague, Ursula, is convinced that the traitor is one whom we now know as one of the most successful British spies and traitors ever, but no one will listen to her. That is the most interesting thing in this muddled book. Not a page turner, nor a book to increase the heart rate. As my header says, it’s a thriller which doesn’t thrill. A good example of how truth can be stranger than fiction and that a non-fiction book, well written, can be more exciting than a novel.
I read this thanks to NetGalley. It’s published by Head of Zeus and is out on 7th July.
So, I was interested to read Katastrophe, a work of historical fiction about this same period. Sadly, I found nothing new in it and it failed to grip. Anyone who’s read Solzhenitsyn knows about life in the Gulag, so nothing there to shock. It was a fluid time, with people changing sides rapidly, some Germans wanting peace and plotting for it, others fanatically fighting a battle already lost. The Russians keen to nab German nuclear secrets. With spies and informers everywhere, who do you trust? What to make of one of the main characters, a Georgian who worked for Goebbels until he upset him and was sent East? Now he’s on his way back to Berlin but who knows what awaits him. Most characters expect to die at any moment.
London is suffering from the V2s and the weary Londoners want nothing but peace. The clever chaps at MI5 and MI6 already know that the peace will be one which Russia will dominate. Our man Moncrieff is sent to Switzerland on a very secret mission which is sabotaged in a way that suggests a tip-off. His colleague, Ursula, is convinced that the traitor is one whom we now know as one of the most successful British spies and traitors ever, but no one will listen to her. That is the most interesting thing in this muddled book. Not a page turner, nor a book to increase the heart rate. As my header says, it’s a thriller which doesn’t thrill. A good example of how truth can be stranger than fiction and that a non-fiction book, well written, can be more exciting than a novel.
I read this thanks to NetGalley. It’s published by Head of Zeus and is out on 7th July.
