Tag: historical thriller

#BlogTour #BookReview #Ad Dead of Night by Simon Scarrow

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Dead of Night final bannerWelcome to the final stop on the blog tour for wartime thriller, Dead of Night by Simon Scarrow. My thanks to Jess at Ransom PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Headline for my review copy. If you’ve been keeping up with the posts by the other bloggers taking part in the tour, you’ll be aware of the praise heaped on the book so far: ‘A gripping page turning thriller‘, ‘An absolute must-read for fans of historical crime fiction‘ and ‘a story full of intrigue, tension and danger‘

Dead of NightAbout the Book

BERLIN. JANUARY 1941. After Germany’s invasion of Poland, the world is holding its breath and hoping for peace. At home, the Nazi Party’s grip on power is absolute.

One freezing night, an SS doctor and his wife return from an evening mingling with their fellow Nazis at the concert hall. By the time the sun rises, the doctor will be lying lifeless in a pool of blood.

Was it murder or suicide? Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is told that under no circumstances should he conduct an investigation. The doctor’s widow, however, is convinced her husband was the target of a brutal hit. But why would anyone murder an apparently obscure doctor? Compelled to dig deeper, Schenke learns of the mysterious death of a child. The cases seem unconnected, but chilling links soon begin to emerge that point to a terrifying secret.

Even in times of war, under a ruthless regime, there are places in hell no man should ever enter. And Schenke fears he may not return alive . . .

Format: Hardback (432 pages)           Publisher: Headline
Publication date: 2nd February 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

Find Dead of Night on Goodreads

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

Being an avid reader of wartime thrillers I’m not quite sure how I managed to miss Blackout, the first book in the series, when it was published in 2020. I shall certainly be snapping up a copy at some point as, although Dead of Night can definitely be read as a standalone, there are lots of things I’d love to know more about, especially the book’s protagonist, Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke. For example, how Schenke’s relationship with Karin Canaris came about and his involvement with Ruth, a young Jewish woman, who seemingly played a pivotal role in events in the previous book.

Most of us, I imagine, are aware of the vile actions of the Nazi regime towards Jewish people but perhaps less so about the atrocities committed against other sections of the population in pursuit of Hitler’s warped and perverted ideology. (As the author notes, sometimes fiction can do a better job of shedding a light on such things than ‘dry tomes of history’.) It’s just such an atrocity that Schenke uncovers in the course of his investigation. But is it an act of personal revenge or something more sinister?

I thought Schenke was a brilliant character. He has a strong sense of justice and isn’t afraid to bend the rules if he believes it is right. It places him in all sorts of risky situations, even threatening the safety of those close to him, something that is never far from his mind. Bringing criminals to justice and forcing them to face the consequences of their actions is what he believes in, it’s what drives him but sometimes, perhaps, even he has to face the possibility he hasn’t the power to do so – at least not yet.  He tries to comfort himself with the thought, ‘There will be a reckoning for the evil that is being done, but I fear that won’t come for some time. Months . . . years . . . who can say? In which case, it is our duty to survive and bear witness.’

Writing about the inspiration for Dead of Night, Simon Scarrow describes it as being the story of how ‘an extreme ideology prepares the ground for unthinkable and unconscionable actions’. I expect we can all think of contemporary parallels. Navigating such a situation while keeping his integrity intact is the dilemma Schenke faces. He’s a patriot but one who has become ashamed of what his country is doing. It’s these difficult choices that make the book so powerful, exposing as it does some of the darkest deeds of the 20th century. 

Dead of Night is a skilfully crafted, completely engrossing historical thriller that will delight fans of the genre. I really hope there will be more books in the series.

In three words: Compelling, assured, chilling

Try something similar: The Pale Criminal by Philip Kerr

Simon ScarrowAbout the Author

Simon Scarrow is a Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author with several million copies of his books sold worldwide. After a childhood spent travelling the world, he pursued his great love of history as a teacher, before becoming a full-time writer. Best known for his Roman adventure stories, Simon took to writing WW2 thrillers, and last year Blackout set in WW2 Berlin, was chosen as a Richard and Judy Book Blub pick.

His Roman soldier heroes Cato and Macro made their debut in 2000 in Under the Eagle and have subsequently appeared in many bestsellers in the Eagles of the Empire series, including Centurion, Invictus and Day of the Caesars. Many of the series have been Sunday Times bestsellers. (Photo: Twitter profile)

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#BlogTour #BookReview The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich @RandomTTours @noexitpress

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Matchmaker BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to No Exit for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today Sharon at Beyond The Books.

The Matchmaker imageAbout the Book

Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems.

Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker – a high level East German counterintelligence officer – who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his ‘Romeos’ who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.

The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she’s the only person who has seen his face – from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office – and she is the CIA’s best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow.

Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne’s
husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver
a different type of justice?

Format: Paperback (256 pages)           Publisher: No Exit Press
Publication date: 17th February 2022 Genre: Thriller

Find The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin on Goodreads

Purchase links 
Bookshop.org 
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

As a fan of spy thrillers, the description of The Matchmaker’s subject matter was like catnip to me. A spy thriller set in Berlin immediately conjures up the decades after the Second World War but The Matchmaker is set at the very end of the Cold War in the months running up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

So this is John le Carré in the era of punk, as it were, with Anne Simpson, the book’s protagonist, observing teenagers with ‘steel-studded leather jackets with safety pin epaulets, spiked hair, heavy boots and defiant swaggers’ on the streets of West Berlin.  It remains a time of political tension in a divided Berlin with the forces of East and West Germany keeping watch over each other across the Berlin Wall and Stasi informers embedded in West Berlin neighbourhoods.  Anne sees stark reminders of the contrast between the relative prosperity of those living in West Berlin and the situation in East Berlin with ’empty streets, muted colours, a grim sameness and people who kept to themselves’.

The events in The Matchmaker are inspired by the real life figure of Markus Wolf, chief of foreign intelligence in the Ministry of State Security of the German Democratic Republic who successfully deployed Stasi agents as ‘Romeos’, targeting lonely women in a position to provide useful intelligence via men they believed married them for love.  Anne is just such a woman although she had begun to have suspicions about her husband Stefan’s frequent trips abroad and his ability to fund such a lavish lifestyle.

When Stefan disappears and is believed dead not only does Anne have to deal with her grief but the discovery that her husband was not the man she thought he was. ‘She saw the ruinous thread of incidents woven into a tapestry of deceit.’ As it turns out, the proof of very personal deceit is closer than she thinks.  Anne finds herself a pawn in a political game because she possesses the key to identifying The Matchmaker, a man sought by both the CIA and West German intelligence.  Threatened with the consequences of her marriage to Stefan if she does not assist their investigation, Anne finds herself in a dilemma. ‘There was peril if she cooperated and peril if she did not’.

Anne makes a superb leading character. She’s feisty, resourceful and grows in strength and determination as the novel progresses.  There were several occasions when I found myself silently mouthing ‘Go, girl’ and one incident in particular in which her riposte to an instruction had me laughing out loud.  When Anne realises political opportunism may trump justice, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

The Matchmaker has all the ingredients you would expect from an espionage thriller. It’s a fast-paced novel full of atmosphere, intrigue and some dramatic set pieces, all set against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in German history. If you’re looking for a book that evokes the feeling of a John le Carré novel I’m confident you will enjoy The Matchmaker. I’m now off to add the author’s previous books to my wishlist.

In three words: Taut, atmospheric, gripping

Try something similar: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John le Carré

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Paul Vidich Author picAbout the Author

Paul Vidich has had a distinguished career in music and media. Most recently, he served as Special Advisor to AOL and was Executive Vice President at the Warner Music Group, in charge of technology and global strategy. He serves on the Board of Directors of Poets & Writers and The New School for Social Research. A founder and publisher of the Storyville App, Vidich is also an award-winning author of short fiction. His novels, An Honorable Man, The Good Assassin and The Coldest Warrior, are available from No Exit Press.

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