Berlin

VIDICH’S FIFTH BOOK IS A MATCH MADE IN BERLIN FOR TRADITIONALISTS

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Its almost a hundred years since there was last conflict in Europe, yet, as I write this piece, there is conflict in Europe and what could lead to military action between the East and West, following Russian invasion of Ukraine last week. During the Cold War there were several times when we were close to World War III, the Cuban missile crisis for one and I distinctly remember the eighties tv adverts informing viewers what to do in the event of a nuclear strike. The cold war ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall and there is the possibility that Kiev or Kyiv as they spell it. Breaded chicken with garlic sauce will never be the same again, and neither will the city of that name, if it becomes the new Berlin. This brings us to this month’s second book review it’s the Matchmaker by Paul Vidich and published by No Exit Press ( www.noexit.co.uk ) on the 17th February.

Its Berlin 1989 and Anne Simpson an American translator for JORC (Joint Operations Refugee Committee) thinks nothing of her seemingly idyllic marriage to her East German Piano Tuner husband Stefan. Until that is, he goes missing on route back from a job in Vienna. When the CIA and West German Intelligence turn up at her door, she informed that she has been targeted by The Matchmaker an East German counter-intelligence officer who runs a network of stazi agents, “Romeo’s”, who target vulnerable women in West Berlin. As Anne comes to terms with the lies surrounding her marriage, the CIA want to use her to smoke out The Matchmaker as he has close ties to the KGB and want tom find out more about his connection with a high-ranking defector. But as the wall falls and the city descends into chaos, Anne wants answers for herself, is Stefan dead? And to catch The Matchmaker and deliver her own type of justice…

What immediately gets you about this book is that it’s only two and fifty pages long, making it an ideal one sitting read, especially if you are on a long train or bus ride or mid length flight. Unlike most of the crop of new and existing thriller writers, who think substance is better then style, Vidich goes with the well worn and successful route of telling the story with enough style and minimal amount of substance, so as not to distract the reader from what they picked up the book for, a good read.

Paul Vidich

The story telling itself harks back to the heydays of the likes of Le Carre, Fleming and Greene. Although it’s set in 1989, there none of the more modern reliance on gadgets and its all down to the old cut and thrust of cold war politics, cross and double cross. Men and women in smoky bars and lounges, walking snow covered streets in high collared coats and trilby’s. This is what true traditionalists seek as an escape from what you can see in any of the numerous small and large screen offerings , and Vidich delivers it style, especially when you realise this isn’t his first foray into this genre.

This is American authors Paul Vidich’s ( www.paulvidich.com ) fifth book. The other include An Honorable Man (2014), The Good Assassin (2016), The Coldest Warrior (2020) and The Mercenary (2021). Vidich has had a distinguished career in music and media. Most recently, he was a special advisor to AOL and Executive Vice President at Warner Music group, in charge of Technology and Global Strategy. He was also a founder and Editor of the Storyville App and currently lives in Lower Manhattan.

So, if you are looking for a well written and traditionalist type of spy thriller, then download a copy or pop into your local bookshop and fall in love with Paul Vidich’s books.

Reviewed by: Adrian Murphy

This book review is part of a Random Things Blog Tour. To see what the other reviewers thought of the book visit their sites listed below, then if you get a copy, comeback and tell us what yoy thought. We’d really appreciate the feedback.

I HAVE MORE THAN A FEW BONES TO PICK WITH GORMAN’S DEBUT

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bone-and-bloodCvrSome books are said to be read like a swimming pool, you leave it there and dip in and out when you feel like it. That’s usually reserved for reference books or coffee table behemoths and other  handy door stops. Most books are treated like a meal owing to the way stories are usually laid out with a starter, mains and dessert. This brings me to the first book review of 2018. It’s Bone and Blood : A Berlin Novel by Margo Gorman, published by Matador www.troubador.co.uk in September 2014.

Bone and blood follows the relationship between Aisling and her great aunt Brigette when they are thrown together in Berlin following the death of Brigette’s daughter Katherina from cancer. Aisling, a university student from Dublin, wrangles a trip to Berlin to represent her family at the funeral, thinking it would be a great chance to see the city. However,  she is forced to share her great aunts house, when in stark opposite to Irish burial times there is a three-week wait on Katherina’s funeral. While sharing the house with someone almost four times her age, she starts to get to know her great aunt and delves into Brigette’s past and how an Irish woman came to spend most of her life in Germany. Through their conversations Aisling discovers Brigette was imprisoned in a concentration camp outside Berlin during the war. But what of Katherina’s father? Where did they meet ? How did Brigette get out of the camp and will Aisling get enough material for a graphic novel telling her great aunts story?

I didn’t like this book, because there was a lot of bones in this story (Think Herring / Mackerel) and gristle too, which made it rather tough to chew and get through. Harking back to my meal reference in the opening lines of the review. If this book was a meal, then the starter should set you up for the main course, but if that  isn’t very good , as in this case, then the rest of the meal turns out to be a let-down and struggles to keep the diner interested.  The first chapter of this book is over complicated and rather hard to decipher and gives no indication as to where the reader or the story is going.

Another point against this debutante Irish writers book, is that there are too many characters to keep track of, especially when you take into account that this was a book group selection and with most book groups you have a certain time scale with which to read a book; in our group its a month. In my case, this period was further reduced to a week, owing to my other reading commitments. This doesn’t allow  one much leeway for over-complicated beginnings. The chapters after that do start to come into focus to an extent but there are still a lot of threads in this story which one must try and keep hold of.  In my own  case I gave up half way through.

The book had a mixed reception at the book group in December at which it was discussed, but myself and a small contingent railed against the general good reports of the other members and were quite scathing. Which sort of came back to bite us, when after an hour’s discussion, the host promptly introduced a surprise guest…. Margo Gorman herself, who was a friend of the host, had been upstairs writing and had heard none of the mixed reviews downstairs.  My wife said she’d never seen me so lost for words, especially when Margo was seated next to me. I did gather my composure along with the others and in a lively and light-hearted discussion afterwards, Margo admitted that she was aware that there was a lot going on in the book and that her editor has asked her to trim the next book down and keep it to one or two main threads.

Margo Gorman

Margo Gorman

This is Irish Author Margo Gorman’s first novel (www.margogorman.com) , although having worked with international bodies for a number of years she has written numerous books and reports for them. She was educated by Seamus Heaney  in Belfast and now divides her time between Donegal and Germany.

The informal questions & answer session over wine, cheese and mince pies with Margo, also covered her inspiration for the book which came about because of a work trip she made to Ravensbruk concentration camp a couple of years ago, where she discovered the stories of Irish women who were imprisoned there and in other camps during the war.

I wouldn’t dissuade you from reading this book, but it can be a bit of a challenge and as I mentioned in our discussion at the book group, there are easier works of fiction inspired by the holocaust to read. Namely Block 46 by Johana Gustawsson which I reviewed last October. But, yes if you want to support a new Irish writer, go down to your local book shop and pick up a copy, but make sure its read in good company, preferably a very nice glass of wine.