Nightfall Berlin

Jack Grimwood

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

In 1986, news that East-West nuclear-arms negotiations are taking place lead many to believe the Cold War may finally be thawing.

For British intelligence officer Major Tom Fox, however, it is business as usual. Ordered to arrange the smooth repatriation of a defector, Fox is smuggled into East Berlin. But it soon becomes clear that there is more to this than an old man wishing to return home to die - a fact cruelly confirmed when Fox's mission is fatally compromised.

Trapped in East Berlin, hunted by an army of Stasi agents and wanted for murder by those on both sides of the Wall, Fox must somehow elude capture and get out alive.

But to do so he must discover who sabotaged his mission and why...

Nightfall Berlin is a tense, atmospheric and breathtaking thriller that drops you deep into the icy heard of the Cold War.

'Even better than Child 44... A blizzard of exciting set pieces, superbly realized.'

'Mesmerising, surefooted, vividly realised... something special in the arena of international thrillers.'

Review by Chrissi (280218) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Book Source: Publisher
Rating 8/10
Nightfall Berlin is a cold war spy thriller. The author works really hard to keep the tone of the book as we imagine the world of that era to be, cold, grey and treacherous.

Major Tom Fox is on holiday in the lovely Bahamas when he is asked to go to Berlin. He has a wife and son whom he leaves to travel home separately without him. His son does not like his boarding school and seems to have some autistic spectrum tendencies and he would dearly love not to go back to the school but he has not yet told his father. The relevance of his family is via the man asking him to go to Berlin, his father in law Charles Eddington, a diplomat who has occupied many roles in the past and who now seems to be an enabler, pulling strings behind the political and diplomatic scenes.

Tom Fox is being asked to go and escort back to the UK a man who defected many years ago, but who ostensibly wants to come back to the land of his birth. Or, very probably, spend his remaining days in a prison in the land of his birth for treason. This man is a relic from a time of the spies such as the Cambridge Four. However, this is now the eighties and the likelihood of any relevant information seems thin, but this is a time of exchanges, and it seems that his communist watchers are happy for him to travel in the opposite direction.

There is a very modern theme running through this novel, which although it is as old as time, in the light of investigations into exploitation, it feels contemporary to both the present and also to the period in which it is set. Kind of weird but it works. For Tom Fox, it causes him to be given only the plausible half of a backstory to arm himself, which he finds to be woefully insufficient. Murder, communists and conspiracies make it a fascinating story and one which I am sure aficionados of this genre will love.
Chrissi (28th February 2018)