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    Then We Take Berlin
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    Then We Take Berlin
    Unavailable
    Then We Take Berlin
    Ebook538 pages8 hours

    Then We Take Berlin

    By John Lawton

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Joe Wilderness is a World War II orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But in 1946 he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison . . . when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents.

    Posted to occupied Berlin, interrogating ex-Nazis, and burgling the odd apartment for MI6, Wilderness finds himself with time on his hands and the devil making work. He falls in with Frank, a US Army captain, with Eddie, a British artilleryman and with Yuri, a major in the NKVD and together they lift the black market scam to a new level. Coffee never tasted so sweet. And he falls for Nell Breakheart, a German girl who has witnessed the worst that Germany could do and is driven by all the scruples that Wilderness lacks.

    Fifteen years later, June 1963. Wilderness is free-lance and down on his luck. A gumshoe scraping by on divorce cases. Frank is a big shot on Madison Avenue, cooking up one last Berlin scam . . . for which he needs Wilderness once more. Only now they're not smuggling coffee, they're smuggling people. And Nell? Nell is on the staff of West Berlin's mayor Willy Brandt, planning for the state visit of the most powerful man in the world: "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

    Then We Take Berlin is a gripping, meticulously researched and richly detailed historical thriller a moving story of espionage and war, and people caught up in the most tumultuous events of the twenty-first century.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtlantic Monthly Press
    Release dateSep 3, 2013
    ISBN9780802193087
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Then We Take Berlin

    4/5

    58 ratings8 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Strangely I struggled to finish this and in fact didn't, perhaps it was just too long with the back story before getting down to the main plot, interesting though that was...
    • 5/5
      A solid read, with a lot of research into the events that are described. The ending is impossible to understand, and it is just confusing. But the descriptions of opening up Bergen Belsen after the war and post war Berlin are true and horrifying.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book. Loved the story. I think I missed something at the end!
    • 4/5
      Warning: The first sixty percent of the book is mediocre backstory. Then the actual "spy story" starts and it's good fiction. Almost as good as Lawton's WWI series.
    • 1/5
      Requires slogging. Don't feel like it.
    • 5/5
      I have read Lawton's excellent 7 book series on Commander Frederick Troy (FT) of Scotland Yard, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. John Wilfrid Holderness, "Wilderness to his women" and Joe to others, is the hero of the new series, and "Then We Take Berlin" (W) is the first entry in what I hope will be another lengthy series. Unlike the FT books, the W book was told mostly in chronological order, if you don't nitpick about the flashback that occupies the middle 60% of the book. It's 1963 and Joe is married, living in England, and is a private investigator of sorts. Joe gets a call to have a face-to-face chat with a WWII contact in New York. It's a free first-class ticket, he's never flown cross the Atlantic before, and what can go wrong. Well, plenty based on his past experiences with Frank. He is offered a job, "job" in the sense of "mission" and the money is just too hard to turn down.Flashback time. Joe as a raggamuffin breaking and entering with his granddad in war ravaged London, drafted in the final days of the war, and ultimately assigned to a high ranking officer to vet German applicants for identity papers. As Joe's talents for more clandestine ops become evident, he is transferred to Berlin in 1945. Joe is young, he is promoted to corporal (never makes officer), but he has clout given his special talents and his direct boss, a colonel. A host of new characters are introduced as well as some old familiar ones - a number from the FT series, particularly Tosca, and there's even a cameo for FT himself. And of course Berlin, and the rubble.Unlike Troy, Joe is not a refined kind of guy, and also cursed with youth he finds trouble very easily, including black market activities. It's at this point that the reader realizes that something is right around the corner for Joe and it ain't gonna end well. It takes a few years, but finally it eventually comes crashing down on Joe, but not on Frank.Now it's 1963, the book is almost finished and Joe is just starting his new assignment for Frank. Joe is back in Berlin, looks up some old friends and meets some new ones. And then there's the Wall. And the "go" date for his assignment is June 26, 1963. Look it up. And it ends with two pages I would not have imagined had I scribbled 100 possible finishes. The only bad news here is having to wait a year plus for the next one.
    • 4/5
      An excellent book mainly about the immediate post war period in Berlin. It is not a pert of Lawton's "inspector Troy" series, albeit that he makes an appearance. The plot is well constructed and the main characters well drawn and believable. It reinforced my decision to seek out more of Lawton's books.
    • 5/5
      One of the things that drew me to read this book was the comparison to Alan Furst. Furst’s earlier works were sensationally good but it seemed to me that the quality dwindled with each new book. In fact Night Soldiers, which I believe was his first, was the best and he’s never improved on it.The resemblance to Furst is mainly due to the time period covered in Next We Take Berlin, being set in the post-war world and running into the early sixties. The writing style, however, is more ornate and that’s a plus as far as I’m concerned. I like the sparse language of Furst but Lawton’s prose is better suited to describing the complexities of the post-war world. Lawton’s protagonist is a likable London wide boy and his exploits as a burglar and black marketeer segue nicely into his burgeoning role as a spy. The amount of detail given of his exploits in post-war Berlin are convincing and showcase the immense amount of research that must have gone into writing the book. The only criticism I have is that the espionage plot set in the sixties comes to an abrupt end signalling (I think) a sequel. A very enjoyable read and I’ve already bought the next book in the series. I’m eager to get started