Tag Archives: novels set in WW2 Germany

#BookReview ‘Berlin Duet’ by SW Perry @swperry_history #WW2

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It took a hundred pages or so for me to settle into Berlin Duet by SW Perry. It’s the first in a new series by a familiar author as I’ve loved reading Perry’s wonderful historical Jackdaw Mysteries series. Berlin Duet, set in WW2, is completely different. SW PerryThe principal story belongs to American war photographer, Anna Cantrell, with her narrative alternating with that of British spy, Harry Taverner. The timeline jumps around a bit in the beginning – 1942, 1989, 1914, 1934, 1989 again and 1936 – establishing Anna’s backstory from childhood. I struggled to stick with it but I’m glad I did. Anna is an English-American Jew living in Vienna, unknowingly married to a Nazi. Raised by her parents – film camerman Rex and artist Marion – now divorced, both living-on-the-edge kind of characters unafraid of being different, Anna doesn’t like the things she sees on the streets or what she reads in her American newspaper. Feeling trapped in 1930s Austria, her life changes when on a visit to New York she is nearly run over by a young man on a bicycle, a chance incident which draws her into a spy network that will change her life.
Trying to establish herself as a news photographer, and with two young children, Anna must accompany her husband to Berlin where he has a secretive new job. Every piece of information she learns about Ivo disgusts her and she hates what is happening around her. When she meets Josef Goebbels at a party function with Ivo, she decides she must use this opportunity. And so she becomes an official photographer for Goebbels, attending openings, industrial events and party rallies. At each event she takes one set of official photos, and a second set for Harry Taverner. She longs to leave her husband but Ivo has already threatened to take the children from her. Worst of all, Harry confirms war is coming. ‘For Berliners, the subject of war had become much like the weather: would it rain, or would it shine? Whatever the outcome, there was nothing one could do about it.’
Once the timeline settles into a simple year-by-year retelling of Anna’s life from the 1930s, the pace picks up along with the tension. Berlin Duet is a love story, a war story, a spy thriller, all rolled into one. I raced through the second half, predicting incorrectly what was going to happen next. Anna lives through a world changed unimaginably by war, and although this is a period so well documented and featured in books and films Perry has written a blend of fact and fiction, pragmatism and bravery, despair and determination that is full of surprises.
I’m looking forward to reading the next in the Harry Taverner series, Cairo Gambit.

Here are my reviews of the Jackdaw Mysteries series:-
THE ANGEL’S MARK #1JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SERPENT’S MARK #2JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SARACEN’S MARK #3JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE HERETIC’S MARK #4JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE REBEL’S MARK #5JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SINNER’S MARK #6JACKDAWMYSTERIES

If you like this, try:-
‘The Second Midnight’ by Andrew Taylor
‘Our Friends in Berlin’ by Anthony Quinn
‘The Silence in Between’ by Josie Ferguson

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview BERLIN DUET by SW Perry @swperry_history https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-ami via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Aftermath’ by Rhidian Brook @Rhidianbrook #WW2

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1946. Post-war Germany, Hamburg. The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook is a gentle novel with an emotionally difficult core: the adjustment of two families, one German one English, to the landscape of rubble a year after the end of the Second World War. Broken country, broken families, broken minds. The title refers to the aftermath of the war and also to the aftermath of events in the lives of both families. Both are grieving and are in new territory, geographically and emotionally. They are proud and unsure. Together, will they heal? Rhidian BrookThe English family: Colonel Lewis Morgan is occupied with the Occupied while his newly-arrived wife Rachael prevaricates, “I don’t know. It was suffix and prefix to her every other thought. This indecision was becoming her signature.” Their son Edmund has no such doubts, facing a challenging encounter with the teenage girl upstairs involving a glimpse of knickers and a steaming pisspot, he then ventures beyond the house’s garden into forbidden territory and meets the local feral youth.
The German family: Herr Lubert, a widower, and his daughter move upstairs when the Morgans arrive in the requisitioned house. Ironically Stefan Lubert is an architect, surrounded by broken buildings, but works instead in a factory while waiting for his papers to arrive which will allow him to practise again. School is closed so Frieda is on the ‘rubble runs’, clearing bricks and rubbish, where she mixes with the feral youth.
They all make their own adjustments to the new situation and for a while it is a quiet, polite tussle for power. Rachael makes changes in the house; she moves plants and drapes a modest cloth over a nude sculpture. She sets herself rules about not fraternising with the Germans, who she believes need punishing. She disagrees with Herr Lubert about a Mies van der Rohe chair which he explains is a Bauhaus design, functionality stripped to simplicity. She says it is uncomfortable.
It is as if each family is trying the other on for size, it is a fascinating observation of ordinary people in extraordinary times. Lewis reflects on the logic of the tasks he must perform: “They blow up a soap factory which employed two thousand Germans, made something everyone needed and had no military value whatsoever and, in return, the Russians send the Germans bread. It was like balancing Hell’s ledger.”
The cover of the book is an attractive, calm monotone and the story is also told in a calm tone; but underneath the emotions are building. As the initial discomfort eases, passion rises.

Read my review of another Rhidian Brook novel:-
THE TESTIMONY OF TALIESIN JONES

If you like this, try:-
‘The Translation of Love’ by Lynne Kutsukake
‘Homeland’ by Clare Francis
‘The Ways of the World’ by Robert Goddard

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE AFTERMATH by Rhidian Brook @Rhidianbrook via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-So