Potsdam Station - David Downing

There seem to be countless novels on the market dealing with 'good' people involved in Nazi Germany. Of the cuff, for example, there is Alan Furst, Volker Kutscher and, of course, Philip Kerr. Then there is the sub genre (see C J Sansom, Len Deighton and Robert Harris) of what-if-the-Nazis-had-won fiction. Downing belongs to the former school and classes with Furst in the degree of detail. I would not have classed him with Furst in literary achievement, having previously read the first of his second series, Jack of Spies (also reviewed on this blog), which is set in the lead-up to World War I. Potsdam Station is the fourth in his series featuring John Russell and Effi Koenen and went a long way to changing my mind.

Russell is an Anglo-American journalist and spy. He is also a somewhat disillusioned communist. Effi is his girlfriend, a former German movie star, now living undercover and helping to get Jews out of Berlin. At the start of this novel Russell and Effi have been apart for almost four years. Russell is trying to tag along with the Soviet Army as it closes in on Berlin in the final days of the war. He also wants to find his son Paul, who is serving with what remains of the German army.

Russell succeeds, thanks to his old communist associates. He is sent ahead of the army as part of team trying to recover as much information about the Nazi A-bomb project as humanly possible. Meanwhile Effi is entrusted with an 8 year-old Jewish girl and Paul becomes detached from his unit. Thus the three key participants move through the increasingly battered city, slowly closing in on one another. It is a fairly common storyline but Downing's command of detail lifts the story well above the ordinary. His writing here is better than I remember in Jack of Spies. Perhaps it is simply a matter of him having more affinity with World War II.

Whilst I didn't hate Jack of Spies, I couldn't recommend it. I have no such problem with Potsdam Station, which is a cracking read. I have an ebook of the first in the series, Zoo Station, which I still haven't read. Must crack on.

The Silent Death - Volker Kutscher

It is February 1930. In Berlin, moviemakers are either struggling to cash in on the new craze for talking pictures or else seeking to protect the 'pure' form of the silents. An actress called Betty  Winter suffers an appalling death when a spotlight falls on her. Soon it becomes apparent that other film actresses are being abducted. When their bodies are found, artfully arranged in closed cinemas, it becomes apparent that someone is removing their vocal chords. Gereon Rath of the Alex investigates.

Of course, Rath being Rath, it is not quite as simple as that. For one thing, his father, the Chief of Police in Cologne, wants him to track down someone who is blackmailing the mayor and future chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Then there is Rath's complex lovelife. He has a complaint lover called Kathi but he still yearns for the part-time whore, part-time police clerk Charley Ritter, who has now given up the whoring to study law. And worst of all, Rath's protective boss Gennat has been seconded to Dusseldorf to try and stop the Vampire serial killer, Peter Kurten, leaving Rath to the tender mercies of Chief Inspector Boehm, who hates him. Oh, and Rath adopts a dog.

This second instalment in the 'Babylon Berlin' series is much better than the first, also reviewed on this blog. Unlike Babylon Berlin itself The Silent Death is not based on some incomprehensible Russian plot. OK, all crime novels tend towards the surreal but at least here it hits upon a unique moment in an extreme industry. The motive is straightforward. There is some very odd backstory but all is explained in the end. The structure is much simpler, the period detail even better, and Rath comes across as a much more rounded character.

Babylon Berlin was a bit of a struggle. The Silent Death was sheer pleasure.

Babylon Berlin - Volker Kutscher

This is the original book (2007) of the TV series (2017). You'd be hard pressed to recognise it. The characters are different - Detective Inspector Gereon Rath is addicted to morphine in the series but only dabbles in cocaine in the book; Charlotte Ritter is a prostitute who wants to be a detective in the series but is a well brought up clerk in the book. Some characters are renamed for the series, others wholly invented for. For example, the Countess is a key figure in the series, a cross dressing singer in the central nightclub; in the book she makes a fleeting appearance towards the end, never sings, and the club which is the whole point of the series barely figures. Perversely, the only really interesting character in the book, other than Rath - gangland supremo Doktor Marlow aka Doktor Mabuse - doesn't make it to the series where he is replaced by the fairly anodyne 'Armenian'.


In short, the book is nowhere near as good as the TV series and I simply cannot understand why the companies involved bothered to buy the rights when they could (and largely did) make up an original period piece without being stuck with the rubbishy main storyline (tedious hogwash about smuggled Tsarist gold). Nothing about the book smacks of 'international best seller'. It starts well but rapidly loses pace and ends up about 40% longer than the storyline warrants. I've no idea whether the translation, by Niall Sellar, accurately conveys the original, but there is a horrific blooper towards the end - 'pedalled' rather than 'peddled' - which should see whoever did the proof reading summarily dismissed.


As you might surmise, I was hugely disappointed. I did like the cover art, though.