A tense, compelling peek behind the Berlin Wall.
Near the end of the Cold War, two students in the German Democratic Republic navigate love, deception, and freedom in Rintoul’s (translator: Outside Verdun, 2014) award-winning debut novel.
In the wake of her brother’s accident—the details of which, like many in Rintoul’s story, come to light only gradually—Magda Maria Reinsch lost faith in the communist cause. She once believed that communism would yield equality, but now the East German system strikes her as one “where favour counts for everything and merit for very little.” This change of heart inspires Magda to rebel against the party until her father, once a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, intervenes to give his daughter a second chance. Now, Magda studies to become an English-German translator at Karl Marx University Leipzig, all the while dreaming of an escape to the West alongside the charming Marek Dembowski, a friend who remained fiercely loyal to Magda after her brother’s injury. Together, Magda and Marek devise a way out of East Germany that revolves around Robert McPherson, a Scot finishing his advanced philosophy degree at Karl Marx. Though Magda casts a manipulative spell over Robert—at one point he chooses visiting Prague with her over seeing his sick father back home—she also finds herself falling for the Westerner, overcome with “an unexpected stab of desire.” Eventually, the Stasi catches Robert and Magda, a turning point that sends guilt-stricken Robert into a long stretch of depression and alcoholism, while Magda, after a brief imprisonment, must once again piece together her personal identity and public image. Beginning in 1985 and continuing after communism’s sharp decline, journalist and translator Rintoul’s engrossing tale alternates between Robert’s and Magda’s perspectives. Written in the second person, her sections are particularly strong, vividly anchoring the East German experience: “You know what the air is like in Berlin…a mix of brown coal dust and two-stroke fumes that leaves a bleak ferrous after-taste.” The novel’s weakness is Marek, who instigates much of the plot yet never appears long enough to elicit sympathy or disdain.
A tense, compelling peek behind the Berlin Wall.Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-906582-97-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Aurora Metro Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
