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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2022, 320 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2023, 320 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Amanda Ellison
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From "master of the genre" (the Washington Post) Joseph Kanon, an espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is swapped by the British and returns to East Berlin needing to know who arranged his release and what they want from him.
Berlin. 1963. The height of the Cold War. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, or at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller's most critical possession: his American passport. Keller's most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.
The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He has worked for the service long enough to know that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.
Filled with intriguing characters, atmospheric detail, and plenty of action Kanon's latest espionage thriller is one you won't soon forget.
CHAPTER 1
Berlin, 1963
The exchange, it was decided, would take place at the Invalidenstrasse checkpoint. The press kept an eye on Glienicke Bridge now, hoping for another Powers-Abel swap, and the international crossing at Checkpoint Charlie would be crowded, cars streaming out of the American sector on day visas. Invalidenstrasse had the virtue of being discreet, out of the way, designated for the few West Germans heading east. And it was in the British sector. This was officially a British exchange, Martin for an MI6 operative the East Germans had held for years and two English students caught helping friends over the wall. Small fry. For someone who'd made headlines. Well, years ago. How many of the young guards up ahead would even know who he was? All they'd see would be the prisoner skin, the unmistakable pallor of someone who'd been inside. There was a different light in prison, even in the exercise yard, the sun itself filtered, behind bars.
"We get out here," McGregor said, ...
Kanon's sparse, utilitarian prose perfectly echoes the austerity of the novel's setting and mimics the cadence of the GDR's propaganda of denial: "There is no crime in the Republic." Through Martin's eyes (the narrative is in close third person) the reader is confronted with the paranoia of East Berlin, the brainwashing of its citizens and its morass of corruption. The writing style is complemented by the high volume of dialogue, through which the guardedness of the characters is revealed. Somehow, despite the frigorific prose, Kanon conveys a warmth in Martin's character and has the reader rooting for him...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Amanda Ellison).
Wherever borders and barriers exist, resistance and the desire to escape will also be found. In The Berlin Exchange, Joseph Kanon's Cold War espionage thriller, the Berlin Wall looms as a formidable barricade. The book is set in 1963; only months earlier, the miraculous story of Tunnel 29 — so called because of the number of people it enabled to escape — played out in real life.
For those hoping to escape the brutality of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic/GDR) for the relative freedoms of the West, the wall was an obstruction few managed to conquer. For the duration of the Berlin Wall's presence from 1961 to 1989, over 100,000 people attempted to escape the GDR but only around 5,000 crossed the border ...
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