Just Finished Reading: Zoo Station by David Downing (FP: 2008)

Berlin, early 1939. British journalist John Russell is beginning to think that his time in Germany is limited. After 14 years in country it increasingly looks like war is coming and if it does the very best that he can hope for is to be interned for the duration. But he doesn’t want to leave. After 14 years he has accumulated too much just to pack his bags and go – an ex-wife, a teenage son and a glamorous girlfriend, not to mention friends in the international press. But if John didn’t think that things were complicated enough they’re going to get a whole lot more so. Approached by the Soviet authorities he is persuaded to spy for them against his better instincts. Catching on that he’s working for the Soviets (in an apparently innocent capacity) the German secret service ask him to spy for them too. Then, when the British ask him to spy for them too, it gets really complicated! But it is the parting request of a friend in the American consulate that could be the complication that breaks everyone’s back. Asked to teach two Jewish teenage girls English to make their exit from Germany easier John become involved in Germany’s increasingly dark internal politics. It seems only a matter of time before one of his jobs will be the end of him.

My regular readers will no doubt remember my love of Alan Furst espionage novels based just before and into the early years of WW2. It seems that he now has a very serious rival indeed. John Russell is a great character who’s embedded in the regime and so can take the reader on a guided tour of the high and mighty as well as the poor and destitute. The evocation of late 30’s Germany is incredibly powerful and well done. It’s probably a toned down version of what was really happening then but is, in some places at least, stomach churning enough that I honestly don’t want to know the awful truth. But if you want a flavour of the time without the need to wash your hands (or have a shower) afterwards you can probably do worse than this. The author is a historian as well as an author of fiction so he knows enough about the period to make things feel real. Personally I was riveted practically from the first page to the last. Luckily this is the first book in a series of adventures for John Russell and I shall be acquiring future books as soon as I can – because, you know, I need even more books in my life! Well written, believable, not exactly for the faint hearted but highly recommended. Very good indeed!