My Amazon Review of William Walker's "A Spy in Vienna....."

 

Vienna on the Road to Anschluss.

 

This is the third William Walker novel I reviewed. I previously reviewed his first and third Paul Muller novel ( Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of William Walker's "Danzig:A Novel of Political Intrigue"  and  Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of William Walker's "Target Switzerland: A Paul Muller Novel of Political Intrigue" ) about inter-war Europe. Paul Muller, his protagonist is a diplomat/spy in the service of Switzerland. Here as League of Nations Commissioner for Austria his mission is to prevent Hitler from acquiring Austria’s gold reserves in the event of a German takeover of the country. Muller goes so far as to meet with British foreign minister Anthony Eden in a failed attempt to get his cooperation in transferring Austria’s gold reserves which are held in the vaults of the Bank of England.

You can literally smell, taste, and witness the street fights of 1938 Vienna in this novel as tensions rise from early January to mid-March when the German troops move in. We see Muller meeting with the Austrian finance minister and the head of its central bank as they try to determine what policy Chancellor Kurt von Schushnigg is going to follow as he attempts to face down Hitler.

Along the way Muller meets with the leading journalists of the day who are covering Austria, among them the now very famous William Shirer. We also see Muller ending up in bed with the wife of Germany’s ambassador and former German chancellor Franz von Papen.

There is brief diversion to Hollywood where Muller was visiting relatives. There he meets the actor, Charles Boyer who had just completed “Algiers.” By shear coincidence I watched the movie last week. So at least for me, it added a nice touch to the book.

Of Walker’s three books I would rate this one better than the other two: not quite five stars but very enjoyable.

For the Complete Amazon URL see: Vienna on the Road to Anshluss (amazon.com)