Having read Vodka & Messiah I was interested in this when I saw it at the bookstore, and the large swastika on the cover had me intrigued as a fan of historical fiction involving that period of European history.

Is it on par with the prior mentioned books? For the most part yes, it is certainly a very atmospheric portrayal of the great fog that occurred in 1952 in London and this forms a crucial part in nearly every scene.

The story involves an ex-spy turned policeman investigating the murder of a scientist in a London park. As investigations proceed it turns out this scientist may have been trying to sell cutting edge scientific knowledge to British, American & Soviet spies. There's a good element of mystery, a few twists and turns and a reasonable level of character depth.

What I found most interesting was the afterword, which like Ranulph Fienness' Secret Hunters implies that the events portrayed are in fact factual, but presented as fiction in order to be published.

Overall, it was a solid enjoyable tale. ( )

I am a big fan of Boris Starling's Messiah so, although I wasn't particularly struck by the blurb of this book, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Either fortunately or unfortunately, my copy contained a hugely misleading blurb which spoke excitedly of a rising body count (there isn't), and the tagline "Now you see it, now you're dead" (you aren't).

This is a very claustrophobic novel and it does a decent job of evoking the thick London fog the characters move through as they go about their investigations. However, there's little feeling of threat. There's a secret the MC, Herbert Smith, is trying to find out but - and particularly because this is set in the 50s - it's not exciting enough. At the grand reveal I was waiting for a second denouement, or some tension, or anything at all to get me past the mild disappointment (particularly as if I had a better memory for names I would have had an idea where this was going within the first third).

This book reminds me very much of Robert Harris' Fatherland - it has the same cold atmosphere and gradual pacing, but where that had an emotional impact (by pulling a neat little trick with what we, the modern reader knows, vs what the MC in that knows), here Starling's neat plotting is slightly too dull. The pieces are there and they all line up well enough, but ... I could easily have given up on this one. ( )

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/3270 ( )

A very good book combining espionage and murder set in post-war London during the great smog of 1952. A good attempt to portray life in post-war London, and particularly the smogs. In his Afterword the author refers to the last London smog of 1962 - I can still remember that one. ( )