Berlin Diary - 1989
Paul Vidich’s spy novel is set in 1989 Berlin before
and after the Wall falls. His hero is Ann Simpson, an American working as a
translator for the vetting of incoming refugees. She is married to an East
German piano tuner who travels throughout Europe.
Suddenly her husband disappears and is later is found
dead. Of a sudden she is visited by the CIA and German Intelligence, and she
finds out that her husband was not what he seemed. Indeed, he was an agent of
the notorious Stasi, the East German secret police.
In a style reminiscent of Le Carre’, we learn that he
romance and later marriage to her husband was set up by a master spy modeled
after the Stasi head, Markus Wolfe. The matchmaker as he is called, entraps
lonely women into romance and marriage with one of his agents. Simpson, just
out of a divorce, falls hook line and sinker for the plot. The marriage gives
the piano tuner cover and information about incoming refugees. This last point
is nontrivial in the development of the plot.
Along the way we find out that her husband already had
a wife and family in East Berlin. Both before and after the fall of the Wall we
have Simpson crossing into East Berlin and in one instance there is high drama
at a bridge check point. Meantime we discover that the CIA’s motives are not as
pure as we first thought, and that Ann will ultimately have to find vengeance
in her own manner.
Vidich’s novel is elegantly written, and he gives a
sense of what life was like in 1989 Berlin.
For the full Amazon URL see: Berlin Diary - 1989 (amazon.com)
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