My Amazon Review of Paul Vidich's "The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin"

 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)

 

My Amazon Review of Joseph Kanon's "Leaving Berlin: A Novel"

Spy vs. Spy

You can taste the rubble of 1949 Berlin in Joseph Kanon’s new novel. Along with the rubble there is intrigue, duplicity and the beginnings of the East German secret police, the Stasi. Alex Meier, Kanon’s protagonist, is a Jewish writer formerly of Berlin and most recently of Hollywood who has returned to his home city to spy for the CIA after suffering the wrath of Congress’ investigations of the role of Communists in Hollywood. Simply put he made a deal to return and as someone who was denounced by Congress, he has the perfect cover.

Along the way we meet several Berlin returnees who still believe that the path to a better world is through communism and the wisdom of the Party in playing traffic director. They will soon be subject to a purge that was far worse than the contempt citations handed out by the Congress of the 1940s. There are more than a few cameo appearances of Bertolt Brecht and a scene in the novel involves the opening of his play, “Mother Courage.” Of course it would not be a spy novel without the Adlon Hotel and as you would have it Meier hooks up with his prewar love interest, who is, to say the least, active in the spy business.

All told “Leaving Berlin” is a terrific spy novel in the tradition of Alan Furst and John le Carre. We might just get a sequel.

The Amazon url is:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R24OZIYJ0EQ0KZ