Lehrter Station by David Downing
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Lehret Station is the 5th instalment of the John Russell and Effie Koenen Series. Author David Downing really creates an environment that makes you feel that you have stepped back in time. This story is post world war 2 and focuses the personal hardships are exposed. Food shortages, accommodation struggles and finding lost friends and relatives are the prevailing themes of this story. This provides a real sense of the confusion and dislocation in past war Europe. It makes the whole enterprise of war seem futile ultimately nobody wins.
John Russell the English journalist with an American passport has sold his soul over to nearly all the spy agencies. There is now more than one ferryman to pay, he struggles to play one side off against the other to save his and Effie’s skin. All this takes place in a crumbled and bombed out Berlin.
The occupying forces and their various zones add to the complexity of post war Berlin. As always a good yarn and a fascinating read. I have the next instalment Masaryk Station on order!