Berlin Red

Starred review from April 3, 2017
In Eastland’s excellent seventh and final Inspector Pekkala novel (after 2015’s Red Icon), Stalin has one last mission for Pekkala and his associate, Major Kirov, in April 1945. The English have an agent in Berlin who has knowledge of the Diamond Stream guidance system, which will give the V-2 rocket pinpoint accuracy. In its perfected form, the V-2 threat could provide the Germans with a bargaining chip in making a separate peace with the western Allies. The English want Pekkala to help them retrieve the information and the agent, but Stalin wants the weapon for himself. Pekkala can’t refuse because the agent whose life is imperiled is his long-lost fiancée, Lilya Simonova, and Hitler’s most skilled investigator is already searching for her. Pekkala must risk the death throes of the Third Reich to rescue his beloved Lilya and, just possibly, attain a future and freedom with her. Eastland, the nom de plume of Paul Watkins, convincingly explores the motivations of everyone from Pekkala to Stalin in this deeply personal story set against the broad canvas of horrific war.

May 15, 2017
At the apex of World War II, Moscow's most notorious detective gets one last assignment from his master, Joseph Stalin.Eastland (Red Icon, 2015, etc.) is the nom de plume of literary novelist Paul Watkins (Midget Submarine Commander, 2013, etc.), who offers here the seventh story about Inspector Pekkala, the unflappable Finnish police detective who began his career as Czar Nicholas II's personal investigator and went on to work for the Communists. This entry begins in April 1945, just as the Battle of Berlin is about to begin. Via the British intelligence services, Stalin learns that one of their operatives, code-named Christophe, has gotten access to a secret of vital importance to all the players about to divide up Germany. More important, the spy turns out to be Lilya Simonova, Pekkala's lost love, whom he hasn't laid eyes on since 1917. Stalin dispatches Pekkala and his Watson-like comrade, Kirov, to the heart of Nazi Germany to retrieve her but with Kirov under orders to execute Pekkala if he doesn't want to return. Eastland's old-school spycraft is as sharp as ever, and as in his nuanced depiction of the deadly Stalin in earlier books, here he takes us deep inside the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin, where the paranoid narcissist Hitler faces his final days. It transpires that Lilya has become the confidante of real-life SS officer Hermann Fegelein, brother-in-law to Eva Braun and liaison to Himmler. Meanwhile, we learn that the general in charge of Hitler's V2 rocket program has developed a vastly improved new guidance system that could turn the tide on the war. It's essentially the novel's MacGuffin, but it gives the proceedings a sense of urgency, not to mention giving Eastland's fictional Hitler an even more foreboding sense of evil. This final entry in a superb historical series not only stands well on its own, but also gives its iconic hero a satisfying finale. A sharp spy story that deftly mixes fiction with history and also offers a rewarding denouement for Eastland's near-mythic detective.

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April 15, 2017

This seventh and final volume in a fascinating historical series depicts a crumbling Berlin during the closing days of World War II. Having solved Joseph Stalin's desperate problems in six earlier books (most recently, The Red Icon), Pekkala, Tsar Nicholas II's personal detective-turned-Soviet investigator, now faces the harshest challenge of his life. If he fails in this mission, he will suffer a loss even worse than death. Adolf Hitler's minions have perfected the steering mechanism of the V-2 rocket. Despite the looming catastrophe of losing, the fuhrer forges on. Stalin knows that the V-2 can now make a difference in the war's outcome, so he instructs Pekkala and his trusted aide Kirov to find a way to reverse the course of the rocket's strategy. VERDICT Delving into the states of mind of Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, Eastland (a pen name for author Paul Watkins) scores a tremendous victory for suspense that is well plotted, historically evocative, beautifully written, and addictive.--Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
The Inspector Pekkala series has shone a light on the dark intricacies of twentieth-century Russia, from the overthrow of the czars through, in this seventh and final installment, Stalin's schemes to thwart Hitler in the final days of WWII. Pekkala is the light-bringer here. He was once a secret agent of the Romanovs, sentenced to brutal exile in a Siberian labor camp after their overthrow. (One of the most wrenching parts of this book is Eastland's re-creation of the cold and isolation that nearly shattered Pekkala during his nine years in the gulag.) As series readers know, Stalin rescued Pekkala on the condition that he serve as Stalin's Special Investigator. This last catch-your-breath spy thriller, set in 1945, centers on the Germans' attempt to perfect a system for guiding their V-2 rockets to chosen targets. British radio operators have intercepted messages that could derail the plan, and Stalin wants Pekkala to get the Brits' most valuable agent out of Berlin. Clockwork precision in plotting, vivid history, and a romantic backstory make this compulsive reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)