War On
This is William Walker’s fourth novel about the banker/diplomat/spy Paul Muller, a man who moves in the highest circles of the Swiss government.( Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of William Walker's "A Spy in Vienna.....") In prior novels we find Muller in Danzig, Vienna, France and Germany, this time we find him in Romania, Turkey, and Finland as he intersects with prewar crises and the start of World War II. Thus, we see those historic events through the eyes of neutral Switzerland. With the war on the great fear in Europe is that of the Russo-German de facto alliance created by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact would destroy the West.
The novel opens in September 1939 with Muller acting
as a representative of the Bank for International Settlements where he takes
possession of the Polish gold reserves being transported by train from the
Polish/Romanian border to port of Costanza. This is sort of a follow-up to Alan
Furst’s great novel “The Polish Officer.”
From Romania he gets caught up in the intrigue of
Istanbul, Turkey where neutral Turkey is under pressure from Germany and
Britain to enter the war on their respective sides. German Ambassador Franz von
Papen and his wife who Muller had a dalliance with her in Vienna make a cameo
appearance here.
The novel ends with Muller on the Finnish border
fighting for the Finns in response to Russian aggression in November 1939.
Quite a life telescoped into four months of 1939.
My quibble with Walker here is that he gets wrong the
price of gold, the number of grams in a troy ounce and the price of jewelry in
the Turkish bazaar of 1939. My sense is that he used today’s prices for 1939’s.
Otherwise I found his latest novel to be a satisfying way to get a sense of
Europe at war, but it is not quite as good as his earlier efforts.
For the full Amazon URL see: War On (amazon.com)
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