Book review: The Man From Berlin, by Luke McCallin

Sarajevo City
Julian Nyča, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

‘Amidst the chaos of World War II, in a land of brutality and bloodshed, one death can still change everything …’

So runs the blurb on the front cover, and it’s fair to say it’s an accurate summing-up. McCallin sets his novel amid the danger and uncertainty of wartime Yugoslavia under the Nazi occupation. Sarajevo, 1943: Abwehr (military intelligence) officer Captain Gregor Reinhardt is called in to investigate a double murder: a beautiful young Croat with a career in film and photography and a dangerous penchant for high-up military types has been found dead, alongside one of her German officer lovers. The Leni Riefenstahl-type figure had reached such heights that she had become a heroine to her people. But who was she really working for … and what might she have filmed that someone doesn’t want seen? Or is she just the victim of a rejected ex?

The world-weary captain, still affected by the death of his wife and emotionally alienated from his enthusiastic Nazi son, must throw himself into a twisty, meandering world where nothing is quite as it seems. Tortured by his experiences on the Eastern front, will Reinhardt crack the case before it cracks him?

The atmosphere of the city, with its sidewalk cafés struggling to still sell decent coffee and accommodate their new masters who must be served, is very well-drawn: the vile stink of the local rough cigarettes permeates the air, and indeed plays a not insignificant part in the plot. The detail has been thoroughly researched. Particularly chilling is the air of uncertainty – who, if anyone, to trust, who not to antagonise; who might or might not have an ulterior motive to get your investigation derailed. There are plenty of scenes in seedy nightclubs and among German soldiers whose homesickness or fear is helped along by the opportunity of a few drinks … as is the power play and intelligence gathering of others. There is resentment, too, in some quarters, as Reinhardt has been called in to the area over the heads of local officers. Reinhardt must think on his feet, watch his back and never, ever confide his plans. As a former police officer in Berlin, plagued by nightmares and incipient ill-health, and still haunted by previous experiences allied to a deep distaste for the way his own country is going, that may not always be as easy as expected. Reinhardt’s attitude contains a grain of historical truth: in the Berlin elections in 1939, the Nazis won only a third of the vote. One observer noted that few Berliners were fervent Nazis, and the city ‘wore its brown shirt sloppily, unbuttoned and with collar open’.

As the tangled web of underlying tensions between local Serbs, Bosnians, Muslims, Croats, Partisans et al continues to feed into what is already a febrile situation, and the bodies begin to pile up, Reinhardt realises that someone doesn’t want him to find out just exactly what secrets the powerful are keeping.

Occupied Sarajevo, 1943
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s well-paced overall, although I did feel it sagged just slightly about three-quarters of the way through, and if I had a very small criticism it might be that the murderer didn’t seem to me to be a ‘natural’. Personally, I didn’t experience that ‘Of course!’ moment you get with top detective writers – however, that might just be me. But the writing is first-rate, the dialogue brilliant and the characters believable. Luke McCallin was born in England, grew up in Africa, was educated around the world, and has worked with the UN as a humanitarian relief worker and peacekeeper in the Caucasus, the Sahel, and the Balkans. He says his writing is informed by his experiences, and that his interest is in exploring normal people placed in abnormal situations. I think he has pulled off the almost impossible feat of portraying a Nazi officer sympathetically. This is the first of a series, and I think I would definitely read another. Overall, a bit grim, but all too horribly real. A virtuoso first novel.
 

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