Ben FergussonReseñas

So very dull. I read 14 chapters and gave up. And I enjoy spy stories and am interested in Berlin’s history.

Honestly? Dire!

An unusual friendship Kasper Meier is at the centre of this pager turner. The novel is set in Berlin in 1946; you can see, hear and smell the city of rubble, ruin and wretchedness. Kasper is a former gay nightclub owner, now a black marketeer who lives with his ill father.

Kasper's world is upended when Eva Hirsch turns up with a request to find a British pilot. Kasper finds the pilot but also a racket that exemplifies a society in which respect for the law and other people is non existent.

Kasper's growing platonic affection for Eva evolves along with the increasing tension that culminates in an ending I didn't see coming.

This book is the first of three in which the protagonist lives in the same Berlin apartment block. I've read A Handsome Man, which I also highly recommend.

Secrets, social climbing and their hurtful consequences are the theme of Ben Fergusson’s second novel. This character- and descriptive-rich story is set in the early twentieth century in Southwest Africa, then a German colony, and Germany itself.

The novel spans the lives of the eponymous sisters, Margarete and Ingrid, from childhood to their early twenties. It culminates in revolutionary Germany in 1919 when the chaos in the Hoffman family is reflected in the chaos in the country.

The consequences for Germany were irreversible just as they were for Ingrid when she learned the truth her family kept from her. But the people responsible for the misleading and worse elicit sympathy. Their motives were not malicious. The characters are well drawn and the narrative unfolds at a consistent but not fast pace.

Fergusson’s writing is engrossing. This is the third of his three novels I have read and I recommend the others, the first, The Spring of Kasper Meier and the third, A Handsome Man.

A great coming-of-age/spy/thriller set in Germany at the time the wall came down. Ben Fergusson further explores here the theme of family relationships he did in his second novel The Other Hoffman Sister.

Nothing and no one are what they seem in this novel about 18-year-old Ralf who has just finished high school. He is part of a group of friends, one of whom, Maike, he is having a relationship. Ralf is also attracted to men and when he meets Turkish-born Oz, his life changes. Oz is an informant for the West German Intelligence Agency, BND.

Ralf discovers his psychologist mother is having an affair with one of the men who live in their apartment block. His reaction is vengeful and so when Oz asks him to steal files about an army officer she is seeing, Ralf agrees.

There was something foreboding and troubling about Oz who is taken away for psychological treatment. The tension in Ralf's life steadily increases as does the pressure-cooker atmosphere that culminates in East Germans shaking their communist shackles.

We all know how the German story ended. I thought I knew how this would end and was surprised.

This is one of the best spy novels I have read that realistically portrays life. Fergusson has a deep understanding of Germany which is reflected here.

‘And this might have been my lasting memory of summer 1989. Even that moment I might have forgotten, recalling only my A levels and the Wall if people asked what that year had meant to me. But of course, in the end, 1989 meant neither of those things. It just meant Oz, and espionage – how grand that word sounds now – and I suppose my family and the terrible things we did.’

Covering the tumultuous period of summer-winter of 1989 in West Berlin, Ben Fergusson’s new novel centres on 18-year-old Ralf, his family and friends, and Oz, a part-time informant for the authorities who has been spying on the apartment block where Ralf’s family live. This is mostly a coming of age story, with an espionage subplot that weaves in and out of the events of Ralf and his family, before the book reaches a thrilling twist and a moving conclusion. The novel is narrated in first-person, with an older Ralf looking back on this period to understand what happened. Imagine ‘Deutschland 83’ meets ‘Call Me By Your Name’, with a little bit of ‘Stand By Me’ thrown in for good measure – that’s probably the best way I can describe the whole effect of this novel.

Ralf and his friends have just finished school – Ralf, with an English mother and German father, has been studying at an international school (hence the A-levels). His close-knit group of friends include Maike, Ralf’s erstwhile girlfriend; Stefan, his closest friend; and Petra, who has an on-off relationship with Stefan. Together they have forged tight bonds, but as the summer of 1989 unfolds these bonds start to unravel, as Ralf finds himself involved in a spying mission set for him by Oz, a 22-year old of Turkish origin, whom Ralf meets at a swimming pool but recognises from a car which has been parked outside his building for weeks. Oz is trying to find the identity of ‘Axel’, a Stasi spy that has been blackmailing leading political and military figures and who, Oz thinks, is really Ralf’s neighbour Tobias. Furthermore, Ralf finds himself torn between his love for Maike and a growing attraction to Oz. As the weeks and months go by further secrets are revealed and everything Ralf has taken for granted in his life starts to crumble:
‘I had the uneasy feeling that I was just old enough to see these things shifting for the first time, a snapshot of a much longer cycle, a split second in the inestimable history of my own deep time.’

Of course, in the background, is the fracturing of Communism and the events leading up to November 1989, when the checkpoints in Berlin were opened and the process that ultimately led to the reunification of Germany was begun. Without forcing the parallels down your throat, Fergusson manages to make the events unfolding in Ralf’s life and the wider political issues find their own threads. There are several subtle examples throughout the book of borders or edges, of something on the brink of changing: Ralf is half British and half German; he and his friends stand on the cusp of adulthood; he finds himself torn between his sexuality; and of course the Wall, which stands as a physical embodiment of the change that is to come to everyone in the novel.

I’ll be honest, when I first came to this novel, I was expecting a pretty simple spy story. Instead, what I found was a little gem of a book, with characters who came alive and clearly show a great deal of affection from the author. The various strands of the novel work in harmony, and the story of Ralf and Oz becomes more and more complicated as he – and us – start to question everyone and everything that happens. Who can we trust? Who is telling the truth? As the answers start to come and Ralf’s life explodes, the truth is shocking and the implications are massive. This is a tender, involving, beautifully written novel which draws you in and makes you care. The historical perspective is handled really well, and you truly get a sense of the teenagers in the story and their lives. It feels authentic, and is deeply moving. As I say, this was an unexpected wonder of a book, providing so much more than a simple synopsis can provide. 4.5 stars, which I’m happy to bump up to 5 simply because of the surprise of its effect on the reader. Wonderful.

)A wonderful book. It is not at all the usual thriller: the hero is gay and gets beaten up and shot regularly.
It is well written and I cared about the main characters and read it at one or two sittings. The atmosphere of 1946 Berlin is wonderfully described, even though the author is far too young to have witnessed it.
The plot involves an old boyfriend of the hero who is a big deal in the black market, and who poses as an old German woman who takes in girls and then sets them to killing the many soldier rapists who are in the city. Our hero gets involved because one of these girls approaches him to ask if he will find the name of a RAF pilot.(The girls never kill their own rapist and they use people like Kasper to get the information they need, thus avoiding risk) Frau Beckmann, the old German woman, supposedly has two
twins, Hans and Lena who are as murderous as anyone in fiction. They give Kasper a hard time and eventually kill his old boyfriend, who tried tto entrap Kasper. Although Kasper is gay, he and the girl escape to America.

I have to admit I struggled with this novel for the first 100+ pages and it was only really until about half way through that it started to feel together as a novel and interesting and then it drew me in very well. But until then I would happily have given up on it if it hadn't been a book group read.
The novel is set in Berlin in 1946, 12 months after the end of the Second World War and this is a Berlin that is devastated and people are still suffering. Having read 'A Woman in Berlin' I felt I was prepared for the horror of that period, particularly the rape of women by conquering soldiers. However, 'A Woman in Berlin' is a factual account and this is a novel and so, although Ben Fergusson describes the bombed streets full of rubble and the hunger of people and desperation very well it is always going to be different to an account from the time.
The relationship between Kasper and Eva, who turns up on his door asking him to find a British pilot, is sympathetically drawn and also the care Kasper shows for his father and the easy relationship they have. By the end of the novel I was on the edge of my seat for them all and hoping for a happy ending. It was early when Kasper is meandering around Berlin and strange unexplained things keep happening that I felt more adrift. This mirrors the feeling that Kasper Meier is feeling, he is used to being a trader who knows his way around the city and he becomes lost and suffers.
The novel is well written and in the end a good read.½

The Spring of Kasper Meier – Excellent Debut Novel

The Spring of Kasper Meier is the stunning debut from English writer Ben Fergusson written with an atmospheric panache where the prose breathes the imagery from the page to your brain. This is a stylistic masterpiece from the debut novelist whose writing is clear and crisp dealing with the shattered lives of those living in Berlin and the evocation of those shattered lives trying to survive. To me this reminded me of Alone in Berlin which dealt with the fear and suspicion in wartime Berlin this deals with the aftermath of war and the death of Hitler did not mean fear and suspicion had disappeared.

Kasper Meier and his father have somehow survived not only survived through the Third Reich but the Battle for Berlin and the Russians entering their City and taking it the battle to every street and every home. Kasper had survived the Third Reich even though he practised what was called ‘deviant’ behaviour, because he was gay, when many of his friends had been killed by the state. He was now surviving on his wits by trading on the black market for goods or information he could trade on and at the same time get a little food to survive for his father and himself.

One day Eva Hirsch comes knocking on Kasper’s door and she requests his help in searching for a British pilot but he is not interested in getting involved with any of the military affairs of any of the victorious countries running Berlin. But the mysterious Frau Beckmann has prepared Eva for this and she knows his secret of him being gay and how that could get him killed still, even after the Third Reich.

Slowly Kasper is drawn in to a world he had no idea that existed and that was very dangerous especially when you always under constant surveillance by friend and foe. He tries to find out who Frau Beckmann is and how she is controlling so many girls, what hold has she got. The more he digs in to Beckmann the threats against him increase as does the violence. At the same time he realised the most of the women Beckmann has power over have been raped by the invading armies and specifically the Russians.

With the devastation of the war and the horrors that it brought to the citizens of Berlin and their final defeat there is still a net of lies and deceit that is round every corner of the Berlin Streets. Nothing is as it seems and Kasper needs to work this out if he wishes to survive and keep Eva safe. As Kasper realises that the random killings of members of the occupied forces are connected to what he is doing he really needs to find Frau Beckmann.

He really needs to work out who is behind the blackmailing of both him and Eva at first he didn’t realise how much that would cost him. Will he survive at times he is not too sure it is as if not only the defeat of Germany is hurting him but the memories of those who didn’t survive.

As he works out who is behind the various killings it becomes a race against Frau Beckmann to survive and escape her evil clutches and at the same time avoid the attention of the occupying forces. He knows that this may cost him his life but he wants to keep Eva and his father alive.

This is an atmospheric and gripping mystery in what was the ‘wild east’ as Berlin had become once it had fallen to the Russians. The terrifying world of post-war Berlin where the women had suffered, and had been raped at the hands of the Russians. The population of Berlin are struggling to survive women are the majority of the German population as many of the men are in POW camps in the east and the men that are left are not the most dynamic bunch of survivors.

Post-war Berlin was a wild and evil place to be after the war if you were German and female there was so little disregard for life because of what had happened during the war years. This novel based on life as it had been after the war and the struggle to survive at the hands of the victors is well researched and shows understand of the fears of those that had managed to survive.

Ben Fergusson’s prose is wonderful and gives a powerful and atmospheric evocation of post-war Berlin and the devastation comes through strongly. The imagery that Fergusson’s prose gives brings the City and its survivors to life and you can feel their fear and their daily battles to survive. This is a stunning debut that draws you in and you feel at the centre of everything that is happening.

I was intrigued when this was sent to me by Love Reading .co.uk and is due to be published in July 2014. This did not disappoint.

This is the debut novel for the author Ben Fergusson and is a wow for me, a great new author with fantastic potential.

This thriller has a different slant on World War 2 as this is set in the aftermath of war torn Berlin. Things are desperate as everything is in short supply and people are trying to get by, by any means.

The story is set in 1946; the main character is Kasper a German living with his father in a bleak mangled city which had been bombed furiously by the allies. Kasper is involved in the black market, and is trying to protect his aging father and his secrets.

Kasper receives a knock on the door from a lady called Eva. She almost looks upon Kasper as a private detective as she feels he can find people. She is trying to find a pilot for a friend. The friend is pregnant as a result of an affair she had with the pilot.
Eva is looking for a pilot for a friend of hers who had an affair with the pilot and is now pregnant.

This is dark, gritty, and visually terrible as buildings and architecture has been destroyed beyond recognition. The author recounts a good historical account of post war Berlin.

I can see this being in the top ten on publication.