Month: February 2020

#BookReview Stasi Winter (Karin Müller 5) by David Young @ZaffreBooks

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516zEuy13+L._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_About the Book

In 1978 East Germany, nothing is as it seems. The state’s power is absolute, history is rewritten, and the ‘truth’ is whatever the Stasi say it is.

So when a woman’s murder is officially labelled ‘accidental death’, Major Karin Müller of the People’s Police is faced with a dilemma. To solve the crime, she must disregard the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life – and the lives of her young family – in danger.

As the worst winter in living memory holds Germany in its freeze, Müller must untangle a web of state secrets and make a choice: between truth and lies, justice and injustice, and, ultimately, life and death.

Format: Paperback (368 pages)         Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 9th January 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Thriller

Find Stasi Winter on Goodreads

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My Review

I seem to make a habit of coming to series part way through.  Such is the case with this series by David Young set in pre-unification Germany. However, although Stasi Winter is the fifth book in the series, I’m happy to say it works perfectly well as a standalone read. Having said that, there are references throughout to events in earlier books which would amount to spoilers. It certainly makes me wish I’d discovered the series earlier so that I could have read all the other books – Stasi Child, Stasi Wolf, Stasi State and Stasi 77 – first .

With events taking place over a few weeks in the ‘catastrophic’ winter of 1978/79, the author cleverly weaves the adverse weather and its impact into the plot. And the grim realities of everyday life for the population of East Germany are vividly depicted. Living in an oppressive state where people are in constant fear of informers and the secret police (the infamous Stasi), it’s no wonder individuals dream of escaping beyond the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier (what we know as the Berlin Wall) and will go to almost any lengths to reach the West. However, it’s a high-risk venture with long-lasting repercussions for those who are caught – and their families – as will become evident.

I really liked the interesting dynamics the author creates between Müller and her investigation team. There’s clearly history between some of them and the reader may, like Müller herself, wonder just who can trusted at certain points. As well as the return of old sparring partner Jager, a Stasi Colonel who seems to have a finger in every pie, one particular individual from a previous case provides the reader with an unique insight on events.

The author keeps the chapters short and the pace intense as the story moves towards its explosive conclusion. And the end of the book includes a teaser for where the story might go next.  A sign, I hope, now that I’ve discovered the series, that there will be another case for Karin Müller before very long.

Stasi Winter is a skilfully constructed and gripping crime thriller with a real sense of period atmosphere.  I received a review copy courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First.

In three words: Tense, compelling, assured

Try something similar: Zoo Station by David Downing

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CityCrime 2014 DY PhotoAbout the Author

East Yorkshire-born David Young began his East German-set crime series on a creative writing MA at London’s City University when Stasi Child – his debut – won the course prize. The novel went on to win the 2016 CWA Historical Dagger, and both it and the 2017 follow-up, Stasi Wolf, were longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. His novels have been sold in eleven territories round the world.

Before becoming a full-time author, David was a senior journalist with the BBC’s international radio and TV newsrooms for more than 25 years. He divides his time – and his writing – between Twickenham in the UK and the Cyclades islands in Greece. (Photo credit: author website)

Connect with David
Website | Twitter

#WWWWednesday – 19th February 2020

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

A book for a blog tour and a book from my TBR pile.

41pum92q8oLWild Spinning Girls by Carol Lovekin (eARC, courtesy of Honno Press)

If it wasn’t haunted before she came to live there, after she died, Ty’r Cwmwl made room for her ghost. She brought magic with her.

And the house, having held its breath for years, knew it. Ida Llewellyn loses her job and her parents in the space of a few weeks and, thrown completely off course, she sets out for the Welsh house her father has left her. Ty’r Cwmwl is not at all welcoming despite the fact it looks inhabited, as if someone just left..

It is being cared for as a shrine by the daughter of the last tenant. Determined to scare off her old home’s new landlord, Heather Esyllt Morgan sides with the birds who terrify Ida and plots to evict her. The two girls battle with suspicion and fear before discovering that the secrets harboured by their thoughtless parents have grown rotten with time. Their broken hearts will only mend once they cast off the house and its history, and let go of the keepsakes that they treasure like childhood dreams.

The House by the LochThe House by the Loch by Kirsty Wark (ebook)

Scotland, 1950s. Walter MacMillan is bewitched by the clever, glamorous Jean Thompson and can’t believe his luck when she agrees to marry him. Neither can she, for Walter represents a steady and loving man who can perhaps quiet the demons inside her. Yet their home on remote Loch Doon soon becomes a prison for Jean and neither a young family, nor Walter’s care, can seem to save her.

Many years later, Walter is with his adult children and adored grandchildren on the shores of Loch Doon where the family has been holidaying for two generations. But the shadows of the past stretch over them and will turn all their lives upside down on one fateful weekend.

The House by the Loch is the story of a family in all its loving complexity, and the way it can, and must, remake itself endlessly in order to make peace with the past.

Recently finished

Dieudonné_RealLifeReal Life by Adeline Dieudonné (advance review copy, courtesy of World Editions)

A fierce and poetic debut on surviving the wilderness of family life.

At home there are four rooms: one for her, one for her brother, one for her parents…and one for the carcasses. The father is a big game hunter, a powerful predator; the mother is submissive to her violent husband’s demands. The young narrator spends the days with her brother, playing in the shells of cars dumped for scrap and listening out for the chimes of the ice-cream truck, until a brutal accident shatters their world.

The uncompromising pen of Adeline Dieudonné wields flashes of brilliance as she brings her characters to life in a world that is both dark and sensual. This breathtaking debut is a sharp and funny coming-of-age tale in which reality and illusion collide.

Heaven My HomeHeaven, My Home (Highway 59 #2) by Attica Locke (audiobook)

Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he’s alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him – and all goes dark.

Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who’s never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she’s not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.

An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas – and some of the era’s racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi’s disappearance has links to Darren’s last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy’s grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself. (Review to follow)

516zEuy13+L._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_Stasi Winter (Karin Müller #5) by David Young (paperback, courtesy of  Zaffre and Readers First)

IN 1978 EAST GERMANY, NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS.
The state’s power is absolute, history is re-written, and the ‘truth’ is whatever the Stasi say it is.

So when the murder of a woman is officially labelled an ‘accidental death’, Major Karin Müller of the People’s Police is faced with a dilemma.

To solve the crime, she must defy the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life – and the lives of her young family – in danger.

As the worst winter in history holds Germany in its freeze, Müller must untangle a web of state secrets and make a choice: between the truth and a lie, justice and injustice, and, ultimately, life and death. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

ImprovementImprovement by Joan Silber (hardback, courtesy of Readers First)

Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn’t perfect, yet she sees him through a three-month stint at Riker’s Island, their bond growing tighter.

Kiki, now settled in the East Village after a youth that took her to Turkey and other far off places – and loves – around the world, admires her niece’s spirit but worries that motherhood to four-year old Oliver might complicate a difficult situation.

Little does she know that Boyd is pulling Reyna into a smuggling scheme, across state lines, violating his probation. When Reyna takes a step back, her small act of resistance sets into motion a tapestry of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them.