The Stasi, dreaded secret police of the Communists, may have gone, but their influence still lingers. As Englishman Ed Blake, on a trip through Europe discovers, when he becomes a murder suspect. History casts a long shadow in present day Germany.
Every country lives in the shadow of its past, none more so than Germany. The Stasi, dreaded secret police of the Communist era, may have been dead these thirty years, but its influence lives on. As Ed Blake discovers, when murder and politics bring his innocent jaunt to a halt in what was...Stasiland.
Excerpt
If Johann Kästner had to die, he could not have chosen a better place. The burghers of Saxony were proud of their Upper Elbe scenery, far superior in their view to the more famous River Rhine. The Lorelei? Rubbish! Not a patch on the Bastei. That Kästner had also arranged for his demise to take place in one of their superb old paddle steamers was icing on the cake.
Which vessel to choose? The fleet’s Methuselah, the Stadt Wehlen, built in 1879? Or the Meissen from 1885? Maybe the Kurort Rathen dating from 1896? Even the baby of the fleet, the 1929 Leipzig? There were nine possibilities.
Of course I’m being frivolous in suggesting Kästner had any say in selecting where he wanted to shuffle off this mortal coil. It was pure chance, dictated by the Saxon Steamship Company’s timetable. Any premature death is a tragedy - and Johann was only 35 - but life is a joke anyway, so one might as well treat his end with levity.
It was also pure chance that found me aboard the same vessel at the same time; an unlikely conjunction, but again, life is little more than a series of coincidences.
For my presence there I blame Maggie, my ex-wife. We had spent the past twenty five years blaming each other for just about everything, so why stop now? When our two children left the nest, the tenuous bonds that had kept us together finally snapped. Maggie stayed in the house, allowing me to keep the silver Porsche; an inequitable division of spoils, you might think, but by this time I was prepared to agree to almost anything to get her off my back.
I could afford to be generous. If I had been unlucky in love, the gods had made up for it by allowing me some success in business. I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say I had enough stashed away to keep me in comfort until the day I received my centenary telegram from the queen - or more likely an email from the king.
Freed of the burdens of family and the need to earn a crust, I did a Peter Pan; regressed to youth. Every kid in the country now has their unalienable right to a Gap year, extended by some to a Gap lifetime. At the ripe old age of fifty five Ed Blake - that’s me - would join the Gap club; for however long I pleased and with the help of my trusty Porsche.
The years had wrought some changes. I could now think of nothing worse than the teenage utopia of slumming it on a tropical beach, while listening to rap music and indulging in unlimited sex. My Gap would be more civilised, more cultural. The timing was perfect. It was early June and I would set out to explore the cradle of civilisation: the continent of Europe.
Professional Reviews
Contemporary mystery with history
24 April 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Review by Alison A Kennedy:
This book surprised me in the sense that I found it to be rather amusing. The narrator, Ed, an Englishman having his own kind of mid-life crisis after separating from his wife, is all set to travel across Europe in his own version of a gap year. His observations are witty and his interactions with other characters give the impression of a hapless, aimless man who is just looking for adventure.
The style of writing was easy to engage with and the plot was interesting. Ed makes a vast number of journeys across Europe and each time he mentions that 'Google tells him it is x kilometres to his destination' it gives you a sense of his middle age and need for adventure but within certain planned parameters (despite his attempts to be free and go with the flow).
The plot is timely in that it deals with issues of immigration, borders, racism, fascism, politics and the future of Europe. The host of characters are vividly described and feel authentic. It is a bit of a stretch that a random Englishman would be enlisted by German police to help with their enquiry but, who knows, maybe this has happened in real life?!
Short, smart political thriller
1 September 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Review by Alex Jones;
I have always held an interest in the Stasi and any tv shows or books on the subject always pull me in, I’m a massive fan of the Stasi series by David Young, so when I seen this one I was instantly interested.
Ed Blake is on a tour of Europe, Now divorced and financially secure, he sets off in his Porsche to discover Europe and maybe himself.
Whilst on a river boat tour, he stumbles across the body of a local politician, and finds himself arrested then accused of the murder.
Once his innocence is proven , Ed becomes a pawn in something of a power battle between the Stasi, the local police and the political party who’s leader he found dead.
In honesty, on picking up this book there was both an intrigue, but probably an apprehension of something very dark and deep to come, don’t judge a book by its cover!
Political thriller
9 August 2019
Format: Kindle Edition.
review by Lsb23
Set mainly in East Germany, this is the tale of Ed Blake. He’s a businessman of a certain age, and looking for a bit of a break from the rat race and see some of the world…..
But then he discovers a body on a cruise ship and become involved in the investigation….as the suspect!!
What follows is a thriller which describes the politics and dangers of a world after the Berlin Wall came down.
I found Ed to be a likeable character, with his humour and humble manner as he describes a time of political turmoil and how a foreigner is treated with suspicion!
While not an intense thriller, there is some danger and it has a lot of details of the political atmosphere of the time and the various journeys Ed makes. An intriguing, interesting read.
This is the second novel in Frank P Ryan's acclaimed fantasy series, The Three Powers. The first in the series, The Snowmelt River, is a top ten epic fantasy bestseller on amazon.
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