Berlin Breakdown

by Bill Rapp

When young American diplomat Karl Rosman is assigned to Berlin in 1989, he finds himself drawn to a group of young dissidents eager to reach out to the West. When one of their group is killed, the dissidents enlist Rosman to pass their story (and some sensitive information) to accomplices and out of the hands of the dreaded STASI. Rosman falls deeper and deeper into a STASI operation against the dissidents, and, as his contacts are eliminated, he becomes a target. Turning to others on both sides of the Wall for help, Rosman discovers that many of those he encounters have ties to his own family, which fled the Nazis 50 years earlier. Ultimately, he learns that no one's loyalties are obvious, and that he must rely on his own skills and instincts for survival and justice.

Genres: Historical Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2008

About the author

I may have spent the last thirty-five years as a diplomat/analyst working for the federal government, but I began my adult life as a professional historian. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in History and German, I received my M.A. in European History from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. I taught history at Iowa State University for one year but then decided to shift my efforts to something less settled and moved to Washington, D.C. That career has taken me to Berlin, Ottawa, Baghdad, and now London, with long stays in Washington in between.

Through it all I never lost my love of history and literature, especially crime fiction, which I often read to take a break from all the history books I had to study for my course work, thesis, and dissertation. Fortunately, I was able to apply that affinity for our past throughout my career with the government, while it also inspired much of my writing. You can see that, for example, in the Berlin novels, especially Tears of Innocence, as I spent several years there as a student and later as a diplomat during the fall of the Wall and Germany's reunification. Even the Naperville private detective series (Angel in Black, A Pale Rain, and Burning Altars) draws on the local history and development of the Chicago area, just as Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald--the two paragons of American detective fiction, in my eyes--did in their novels and stories set in southern California.

Reviews

[Shomeret · Rating 4 out of 5]

When publicist Wiley Saichek asked me to review a novel by thriller author Bill Rapp, I told him that I was most interested in Berlin Breakdown. It deals with how and why the tearing down of the Berlin Wall came about. This was an important 20th century event that led to the re-unification of Germany. I wanted to know more about the history of this era. So I accepted a review copy of Berlin Breakdown provided by Wiley Saicheck as a gift from Amazon.

My interest in this book wasn't solely historical. I love a good thriller. I slogged through many books in 2019, but the pages of Berlin Breakdown flew by. American diplomat Karl Rosman braved violent confrontations with agents of the East German secret police known as the Stasi.

I saw a review on Amazon that complained about characterization in this book. I thought that character portrayal was consistent with standards in the thriller genre where books tend to be more plot driven than character driven. Nevertheless, there were characters whose backgrounds and motivations were developed in the course of the narrative in Berlin Breakdown. There were also some dramatic character revelations. So I'd say that Bill Rapp's characterization was better than I usually find in thrillers.

I thought that Berlin Breakdown was well-written, and I appreciated the unusual choice of historical period.

For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...