The diary format is so contrived, and so little happens. I couldn't enjoy this. ( )

A lovely, gentle story. Surrounded by current and coming violence, this is a small story of a small family and small community of real human beings. Life and History are huge things and this puts a scale to it all. Good reminder of that scale and import. ( )

Josef is a German Communist agent who has worked on assignments around the world for Moscow. In 1938 he returns to Germany to work in a railway yard and scope out whether there are any workers (or undercover communists) who are willing to rise up against Hitler. He lives in a rooming house run by the widowed Anna, and becomes close to her 12 year old son Walter, who has never known his father and who is frequently in trouble at school for questioning some of Hitler's positions.

This is billed as a novel of "historical espionage," not a genre I am familiar with. (I picked this up for free at the ALA convention last year). I found the first 250-60 pages as merely setting the stage, and for an espionage novel, rather slow-moving. Most of it consisted of letting us see exactly what life was like in Hitler's pre-war Germany, with informers everywhere and the Gestapo eagerly awaiting the opportunity to swoop down on some unfortunate victim. It was also a touching story of Josef's relationship with the fatherless Walter. Josef begins to question his life to date--constantly on the move with the inability to form permanent relationships. He comes to care deeply for Walter, and also forms a close, but non-romantic relationship with Anna.

The action/espionage part of the novel takes place over only the last 40 or so pages of the book, and felt extremely rushed to me, and somewhat sketchy. So if a good spy thriller is what you're looking for, I don't think you'll find it in this book. But as a look at pre-war Germany, and an examination of a man second-guessing his life choices, this was an okay read. Not great, but okay.

3 stars ( )

To explain the title I will give you the epigraph from the book: "Correctly anticipating a sentence of death at his trial in 1919, Eugen Leviné, the leader of the Bavarian Soviet, famously announced that "we Communists are all dead men on leave." This proud utterance was subsequently adopted by those agents of the Communist International who worked outside the Soviet Union in the interwar years."

The story begins in April 1938 in a town in Nazi Germany. It is told entirely, with the exception of an introduction and an 'afterwards' (clever, that), in a diary format that covers April 23, 1938 to the last entry on November 29, 1938. It is very easy to believe that this is a true story of a diary found in the wall of a building being demolished in 1987 although the writing is a little too polished to make this wholly believable.

I think a familiarity with this pre-war era in Germany, from earlier novels by Downing or other books will aid a reader in their understanding and enjoyment of this one. It is slow moving so I'll give that warning. Give it time though.

Read a few reviews on Goodreads or elsewhere to see if this might appeal to you. In its own way this book is a commentary on the world today, how societies and systems can be subverted in a remarkably short period of time. I can almost say this is a brilliant book. Probably not quite there but if you let yourself be immersed within the bookends you will be rewarded. If you have read Downing's Station books (I've read the first four) and liked them, well, don't pass this up. ( )

Sometimes one starts a book somewhat unconvinced it'll be a good read but after getting into it growing absorbed and impatient to return to it when interrupted by visitors! Then when one comes near to the end of this very readable work and h=gets into the epilogue there's a profound mixture of sadness and joy to what happened to the main characters in the story. Then I realized what a good book and profound piece of history I'd shared.

Without spoiling the plot line this is about Josef's journal. He was a Comintern spy (aka Soviet) in Germany in 1938 on a mission of intrigue. As such he was in enemy territory as he would have equally been "home" in Stalinist Russia. He was in a nondescript small town in Germany working in a rail yard while on a mission to resurrect a "cell". He keeps a journal hidden in the guesthouse he stays in and nearly all of the book is this journal. While a journal it is very readable and succinctly captures the horrors of pre-war Germany. The last, and to me most profound part, the epilogue, is written by a “survivor” 50 years later recounting to what happened to the protagonists of the book - but not Josef unfortunately. Emotional, both good and bad.

Please never again. ( )