- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (24 Jun 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340961287
- ISBN-13: 978-0340961285
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 233,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Arms Maker of Berlin
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Product Description
Review
'Stylish, thoughtful and satisfying' (Daily Mail )
'Fesperman does "escalating peril" with brio. Turnbull has a crumpled everyman charm.' (Guardian )
'Fesperman is the closest thing America has to John le Carré, a writer of great elegance and sophistication whose novels are as topical as they are compelling. In a market saturated by factory-made thrillers, Fesperman stands out as a spy novelist of the highest quality.' (Charles Cumming )
'A worthy and ambitious tour of German history from 1941-2009 . . . a good intelligent book' (The Times )
'Fesperman focuses on Switzerland and Germany and the wartime intrigues of the White Rose student movement, which dared to speak out against Hitler, as he crafts a tale of love, war and betrayal' (West Australian )
'It goes without saying that Fesperman is a master of orchestrating tension - but he is equally good at characterising his vulnerable, conflicted protagonists' (Daily Express on THE AMATEUR SPY )
'A superb spy thriller worthy of sharing shelf space with the novels of John le Carré and Ken Follett' (USA Today on THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO )
'Fesperman is that rare journalist who is also a gifted novelist...first-rate' (Washington Post on THE WARLORD'S SON )
'An absorbing novel with some provocative commentary on America's war on terror' (Susannah Yager, Sunday Telegraph on THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO )
'Fesperman does "escalating peril" with brio. Turnbull has a crumpled everyman charm.' (Guardian )
'Fesperman is the closest thing America has to John le Carré, a writer of great elegance and sophistication whose novels are as topical as they are compelling. In a market saturated by factory-made thrillers, Fesperman stands out as a spy novelist of the highest quality.' (Charles Cumming )
'A worthy and ambitious tour of German history from 1941-2009 . . . a good intelligent book' (The Times )
'Fesperman focuses on Switzerland and Germany and the wartime intrigues of the White Rose student movement, which dared to speak out against Hitler, as he crafts a tale of love, war and betrayal' (West Australian )
'It goes without saying that Fesperman is a master of orchestrating tension - but he is equally good at characterising his vulnerable, conflicted protagonists' (Daily Express on THE AMATEUR SPY )
'A superb spy thriller worthy of sharing shelf space with the novels of John le Carré and Ken Follett' (USA Today on THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO )
'Fesperman is that rare journalist who is also a gifted novelist...first-rate' (Washington Post on THE WARLORD'S SON )
'An absorbing novel with some provocative commentary on America's war on terror' (Susannah Yager, Sunday Telegraph on THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO )
Review
'It goes without saying that Fesperman is a master of orchestrating tension - but he is equally good at characterising his vulnerable, conflicted protagonists' -- Daily Express on THE AMATEUR SPY 20070730 'A superb spy thriller worthy of sharing shelf space with the novels of John le Carre and Ken Follett...darkly imaginative...draws a dramatic portrait' -- USA Today on THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO 20060712 'A terrific novel of intrigue, duplicity and death in the shadow of the Khyber Pass...Fesperman is that rare journalist who is also a gifted novelist...first-rate' -- Washington Post on THE WARLORD'S SON 20060712 'An absorbing novel with some provocative commentary on America's war on terror' -- Susannah Yager, Sunday Telegraph on THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO 20060723 'Fesperman is the closest thing America has to John le Carre, a writer of great elegance and sophistication whose novels are as topical as they are compelling. In a market saturated by factory-made thrillers, Fesperman stands out as a spy novelist of the highest quality.' -- Charles Cumming 20090109
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Workmanlike" is probably the adjective that best fits this thriller, which hopscotches back and forth between the present and WWII. The story is appropriately convoluted for the genre, involving a naive anti-Nazi resistance group in Berlin, the impending collapse of the Third Reich, OSS activities in Switzerland, and how all these connect to the present. And rest assured they do -- as Dr. Nat Turnbull, a semi-distinguished professor of modern German history at a small liberal-arts college, discovers when he is hired to track down some old OSS files hidden by his mentor at the college.
Turnbull (like pretty much every character in the book) is a stock figure, he's the anonymous academic who gets sucked into a great intrigue with national security implications (paging Dr. Jones, Dr. Indiana Jones to the front please, your country needs you to fight Nazis). It seems these old missing files have something to do with present-day nuclear weapons proliferation, and since the FBI apparently doesn't have the expertise to find them, they enlist Dr. Turnbull. This is a pretty flimsy way of setting up a kind of "everyman" protagonist, and it only continues to be unconvincing as the story moves along. But you just have to accept the premise and move on if you want to have any hope of enjoying the book.
What follows is a treasure hunt that takes Dr. Turnbull all over the place, from Baltimore to the National Archives outside Washington, to Florida, Switzerland, various parts of Germany, and so on. Tagging along with him for parts of this quest is his unreliable ally, a mysterious German academic with her own agenda. Meanwhile, alternating chapters take us back to wartime Germany and the relationships among members of a feeble resistance cell. The historically-set material is much more interesting than the contemporary chapters, as we get a real sense of how certain parts of German society were trying to position themselves for the inevitable Allied victory. Alas, the characters of both eras are types rather than people, and there is plenty of quite creaky dialogue throughout.
The story is full of twists and turns and deceit, all of which work perfectly well but somehow feel rather formulaic. You could spend your whole life reading nothing but thrillers revolving around Nazi Germany, so it takes a lot to stand out. (For example, this book has little of the detail that bring Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy to vivid life, nor do they have the striking atmosphere of Alan Furst's excellent spy novels). The book tries gamely to provide that big twist at the end that readers expect from thrillers, unfortunately I saw it coming a mile away (in the first third of the book I had a pretty good idea that an assumption had been made regarding a certain character that would be revealed at the very end to be untrue, and I was right). In the end, I can't say I'm glad I read it, but neither can I say it's not worth reading. It's a serviceable thriller that passes the time pleasantly enough, as long you keep your expectations lowish.
Turnbull (like pretty much every character in the book) is a stock figure, he's the anonymous academic who gets sucked into a great intrigue with national security implications (paging Dr. Jones, Dr. Indiana Jones to the front please, your country needs you to fight Nazis). It seems these old missing files have something to do with present-day nuclear weapons proliferation, and since the FBI apparently doesn't have the expertise to find them, they enlist Dr. Turnbull. This is a pretty flimsy way of setting up a kind of "everyman" protagonist, and it only continues to be unconvincing as the story moves along. But you just have to accept the premise and move on if you want to have any hope of enjoying the book.
What follows is a treasure hunt that takes Dr. Turnbull all over the place, from Baltimore to the National Archives outside Washington, to Florida, Switzerland, various parts of Germany, and so on. Tagging along with him for parts of this quest is his unreliable ally, a mysterious German academic with her own agenda. Meanwhile, alternating chapters take us back to wartime Germany and the relationships among members of a feeble resistance cell. The historically-set material is much more interesting than the contemporary chapters, as we get a real sense of how certain parts of German society were trying to position themselves for the inevitable Allied victory. Alas, the characters of both eras are types rather than people, and there is plenty of quite creaky dialogue throughout.
The story is full of twists and turns and deceit, all of which work perfectly well but somehow feel rather formulaic. You could spend your whole life reading nothing but thrillers revolving around Nazi Germany, so it takes a lot to stand out. (For example, this book has little of the detail that bring Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy to vivid life, nor do they have the striking atmosphere of Alan Furst's excellent spy novels). The book tries gamely to provide that big twist at the end that readers expect from thrillers, unfortunately I saw it coming a mile away (in the first third of the book I had a pretty good idea that an assumption had been made regarding a certain character that would be revealed at the very end to be untrue, and I was right). In the end, I can't say I'm glad I read it, but neither can I say it's not worth reading. It's a serviceable thriller that passes the time pleasantly enough, as long you keep your expectations lowish.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Nat Turnbull, a professor of history, is contacted by the wife of his former mentor, Professor Gordon Wolfe, who has been taken into custody by Berl the FBI for stealing top secret archive documents dating back to the Second World War. Even though they had not spoken for many years, Wolfe knows that Turnbull is the one to unravel the mystery of these documents and follow the trail he has laid for him. This trail leads him to a mysterious resistance group in Berlin known as the White Rose and the search for their betrayer. It is soon clear that the FBI have their own agenda as they want the identity of this person to remain hidden for political and financial reasons. On the face of it a fairly conventional thriller but what makes this title so readable is the tight, incisive writing, the excellent plotting with no loose ends anywhere, and the depth and scope of the research which has obviously gone into the writing of this book.
Excellent and yet another example of a book which will never make any long list for a prize, will never receive a literary review and which will be slighted by the glitterati. Yet it is these unsung heroes who consistently turn out readable, well written novels for us all to enjoy and I can only hope they sell well and bring the author financial as well as personal satisfaction with their talent. I have not read anything else by Dan Fesperman but will now look for his other titles - if they are as enjoyable as this one then I have treats in store.
Excellent and yet another example of a book which will never make any long list for a prize, will never receive a literary review and which will be slighted by the glitterati. Yet it is these unsung heroes who consistently turn out readable, well written novels for us all to enjoy and I can only hope they sell well and bring the author financial as well as personal satisfaction with their talent. I have not read anything else by Dan Fesperman but will now look for his other titles - if they are as enjoyable as this one then I have treats in store.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Nat Turnbull, historian. Asleep at his cubicle after hours in the library.
Doesn't sound like a hero, does it? And yet, this is the central character of Fesperman's masterful weaving of past and present, of heroes and heroines, villains and deceivers, all somehow linked to events in Berlin during the Second World War.
Fesperman is a great storyteller and I was hooked from the beginning as Turnbull begins to unpeal the layers of the past to it's dramatic conclusion.
I really enjoyed it. Easy read, good characters and plotting, and a step up from his previous novel, The Amateur Spy.
Doesn't sound like a hero, does it? And yet, this is the central character of Fesperman's masterful weaving of past and present, of heroes and heroines, villains and deceivers, all somehow linked to events in Berlin during the Second World War.
Fesperman is a great storyteller and I was hooked from the beginning as Turnbull begins to unpeal the layers of the past to it's dramatic conclusion.
I really enjoyed it. Easy read, good characters and plotting, and a step up from his previous novel, The Amateur Spy.
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