The Second Son - Jonathan Rabb

Rabb is one of many contemporary crime novelists exploring the Nazification of Germany from the point of view of non-Nazi policemen.  Philip Kerr is by far the best of these.  In this, the third of his Berlin Trilogy, Rabb takes us to civil war Spain at the time of the alternative Olympics in 1936.  Again this is not new (see Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe, and Jack Ludlow, A Broken Land) and would have been better had he told us something worth knowing about the event.  The alternative Olympics would be a great theme for a novel but it is not the theme of this one.  Quite what is, I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm in the dark because this is the third of a trilogy and I haven't read the other two.  It shouldn't be the case - you can read Smiley's People, for example, without having read The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.  I certainly did.

Forcibly-retired Police Inspector Nikolai Hoffner takes himself off to Spain in search of his second son, Georg, a newsreel cameraman who has gone missing.  Previous novels presumably deal with his estrangement from his older son, Sasha.  Hoffner has cryptic clues to follow in a telegram that is nowhere near as implausible as the later revelation of where it came from.  He meets a female doctor, Mila, much younger than himself, and they (again slightly implausibly) become lovers and set off on a cross-country quest.

That's pretty much it.  Rabb clearly knows his subject matter but does not feel the urge to share it adequately with those of us who don't.  He writes well, his style crisp, well-paced and authoritative.  I'm sorry, but whilst the narrative kept me interested, I found I couldn't care less about the characters.

A Broken Land - Jack Ludlow

A Broken Land is the second in Ludlow/Donachie's "Roads to War" trilogy, featuring not-quite-a-gentleman adventurer and arms dealer, Cal Jardine.

The land broken is Spain as the Civil War breaks out in 1936.  Cal is Barcelona supporting British entrants to an alternative Olympics, an event which, if it happened had passed me by entirely, and if not is a brilliant concept.  His boxer buddy Vince is there as trainer and Cal is busily fraternising with the locals in the shape of anarchist translator Florencia.

I like many things about this second instalment, largely because it didn't go quite the way I anticipated after reading the first, The Burning Sky (see below).  Many characters return - one in a unexpected twist late on in proceedings - but Vince, for example, goes home to London halfway through.  Florencia is one of the big differences.  In Burning Sky Ludlow seemed uncomfortable with his one significant female character, who was relegated much of the time to off-screen women's stuff.  Here Florencia is active in all regards, a richly drawn character whose fate we care about.  I also liked the fact that the historical conflict is not resolved but Cal's personal conflict is.

The series gets better book by book, and it started pretty well.  I am desperate now to lay hold of volume three.