Berlin Red: An Inspector Pekkala Novel of Suspense

by Sam Eastland

Overview

April 1945 – Inspector Pekkala is in a race against time as he heads to Berlin to capture the plans for a secret weapon that could change the course of the war. “Excellently plotted and paced, with a lively cast, real and fictional.” – The London Times (Book of the Month)



Berlin Red is the seveneth and final novel in this “gripping series of literary thrillers” (Booklist) by Sam Eastland, the nom de plume of acclaimed novelist and memoirist Paul Watkins. The previous Inspector Pekkala suspense novels published by Opus were Red Iconand The Beast in the Red Forest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623160906
Publisher:	Subtext
Publication date:	06/01/2017
Pages:	376
Sales rank:	766,082
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Sam Eeastland is the nom de plume of novelist and memoirist Paul Watkins. He is the son of Welsh parents and the grandson of a London Metropolitan Police Investigator who served in Scotland Yard's famous “Ghost Squad.” Watkins spent his early years in Rhode Island and was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, Eton College and Yale University. Watkins has written for The London Times, The London Sunday Times, The New York Times and The Observer. For the past 25 years, he has taught at the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/03/2017
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. (June)

Publishers Weekly

04/15/2017
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 führer 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

Library Journal

2017-05-02
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 Führerbunker 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.

Kirkus Reviews