Steve Haberman (1)

Received through Voaracious Readers. This novel is set in postwar Berlin while the Allies divide the city into zones. Charly, a war correspondent is missing. Her friend Jonas asks for help, but the various governments are overwhelmed by aftermath of war: poverty, famine, violence, rape, revenge, the building animosity between the Brits, the US and Russia. There is no capacity or willingness to look for a single woman who had gone looking for trouble. While Jonas and Charly find each other they also become embroiled in espionage and dangerous convoluted plots and counterplots. The complexity of the plot is perhaps a little entangled and the characters, other than moving closer, don’t develop very far. We don’t really know them very well. A very visceral picture of postwar Berlin.… (más)

The bones lie everywhere in post WW2 occupied Berlin, barely covered in the rubbish piles. Bones of citizens left behind by the losers of the war whether they supported that regime or opposed it, and abused by the winners, especially their old enemies the Russians. The remaining citizens are impoverished, homeless, hopeless, scavenging for anything to eat or barter. Except for the plotters and occupiers. And the rare American journalist, Charly, who is too determined to give in or give up in a time long before women got any recognition for anything they did outside the home. Jonas was a bodyguard for Churchill and is now more than a bodyguard to Charly. Together the get deeply and dangerously involved in the intrigue. Gripping, riveting tale about a time of disgrace.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy via NetGalley.… (más)

This is a slow moving suspense which action takes place against a background of violence and riots in Paris after an Austrian right winger was acquitted by jury. State criminal investigator, Stanislas Cassel, grandson of a French propagandist for the Nazis during WW11, looks into the bizarre murder of a pensioner... what will his investigation uncover?

Drawn from tragic lives of actual people this story is nevertheless fictional it’s a mix of mystery about the past, the present and about a little of everything: murder, betrayal, redemption and particularly of “who- dun-it”. This is a convoluted drama that brings to light how suffering and violence continue long after the war ended. . It may be a plus to be familiar with the Vichy Government politics during the war years and what the French citizens had to face.

The story centres mainly on Stanislas Cassel with all his faults and qualities especially his determination to get to the bottom of this case. In the course of his investigation he finds out the murdered man was keeping boxes of notes, documents and folders in German. Was this man a traitor? Why was he killed? Of course you will have to read the book to find out...

I had a hard time getting into this book it was all over the place and in no time it had lost interest. They were too many characters popping out of nowhere and too many treads that did not match...or was it that I had lost all interest by then. Yes I read it to the last words and today writing my thought I still question why did I last so long with a story that seemed at first interesting but that soon turned out to be a painful college English assignment.

This definitely was not a preferred book but it may be yours so don’t take my words have a look for yourself… (más)