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Tag Archives: British intelligence

Mission Improbable: Three Hours in Paris

05 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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amateurish spymasters, assassin, book review, British intelligence, Cara Black, German Occupation, high-octane plot, historical fiction, Hitler, implausible narrative, invasion of Britain, June 1940, Paris, Section D, thriller, World War II

Review: Three Hours in Paris, by Cara Black
Soho, 2020. 360 pp. $17

One Sunday in late June 1940, Kate Rees parachutes from a British airplane into France and reaches Paris, a city she knows well from before the war, now barely weeks into the German Occupation. But this visit, she won’t be frequenting the cafés she recalls so fondly, or the booksellers by the Seine, places where her late husband courted her. Kate’s in Paris to shoot Hitler, because British Intelligence has decoded German wire traffic and learned he’ll be there.

A gripping premise, to be sure, and from first to last, Three Hours in Paris never lets up. I admire the storytelling, which lives inside a flashing sign that says, “no — and furthermore.” But I have to take issue with just about everything else, because if the breathless pace ever paused, the absurd circumstances defy belief.

This famous photograph, from June 23, 1940, records Hitler’s brief, only visit to Paris. Flanking him are (left) Albert Speer, minister of armaments and war production, and Arno Breker, an artist. (Courtesy U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; public domain in the United States)

Kate’s American, a neutral citizen in June 1940, which makes her a peculiar choice for such a mission. Though she’s a crack shot, having grown up on a ranch in Oregon, that’s her sole qualification, aside from her American-accented French. What’s more, her handlers somehow gloss over the eventuality that she might be caught, and for some reason, she doesn’t press them. That’s typical of her training, rudimentary and brief, and of the vague, amateurish atmosphere of British Intelligence, rather like a classroom that’s slipped the teacher’s control. (To be fair, this isn’t the famed Special Operations Executive, but its predecessor, known as Section D.)

The German side of this equation seems almost as absurd. We have Gunter Hoffman, a Munich homicide detective somehow working for the Reichsicherheitsdienst, or security service, assigned to track down who fired at Hitler. In a very tired trope, Hoffman doesn’t particularly care for the Führer; with so many novels about disaffected Germans, it’s a wonder the war ever happened. But that’s less the problem here than the overhyped interservice rivalries. Those add a few “no — and furthermores” for the detective to grapple with, improbable as they are.

As for Paris, the city seems wide open for business, an unusual situation for a Sunday, as any Francophile traveler knows. Finally, Kate’s mission quickly morphs into much bigger game, which ups the stakes, always a plus, but at further expense to credulity.

However, to her credit, Black manages to finesse a few of these clunkers, countering expectations. That’s where Three Hours in Paris does best; nothing is certain, ever, and Kate never knows whom to trust, if anybody. If the author has chosen an unlikely protagonist on an improbable mission, she makes up for that in part by wedging her heroine into a tight space and tightens it further without respite. Human laxity does Kate a favor, every now and again, but every time she slips through a net, she’s earned her escape with ingenious, on-the-spot thinking, and you know her respite will be temporary.

That’s Black’s payoff from deciding to use an untrained agent; everything’s a surprise, nothing has been planned. But Kate’s up against a crack detective in Hoffman, tireless, equally adept at quick thinking. It’s a pleasure following his reasoning, wondering how he’ll box Kate in; you have to admire his skill. Black’s known for her Aimée Leduc mysteries, set in Paris, and the author has police procedure and the city down pat; I’m sure she realizes her Sunday portrayal stretches the truth. If the military and espionage operations appear fuzzy, Paris comes in crystal clear:

She took a side street and familiar scents assailed her: the tangy odor from a green metal pissoir, a whiff of a woman’s perfume, the acrid smoke of a hand-rolled cigarette. Rapid-fire Parisian argot spilled out of a shop, now bearing signs of future rationing regulations, and onto the sidewalk. The conversation was punctuated by the snort of an ice wagon horse, the clatter of the wagon’s wheels and the clip-clop of hooves on the cobbles, the flower seller’s shouts. The Paris she knew, if more subdued.

You have to like the two main characters, though neither comes through with much depth. Emotional transitions happen in an eyeblink, and more than a few sentences in these passages restate the obvious. But if you read Three Hours in Paris, you’re reading for a high-octane plot, and in that, the novel delivers.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Rocket Terror: V2

22 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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1944, book review, Britain, British intelligence, Germany, historical fiction, London, no and furthermore, Robert Harris, Scheveningen, sexism, terror weapon, thriller, V2 rockets, Wernher von Braun, World War II

Review: V2, by Robert Harris
Knopf, 2020. 312 pp. $29

In late November 1944, the Germans rain V2 rockets on London, killing hundreds of civilians, and destroy thousands of homes at supersonic speed. Once the rockets launch from the Dutch coast, they take mere minutes to cross the North Sea and land with no warning save for a last-second shift in air pressure. By that time, it’s too late to seek shelter. The V2, named for Vergeltung, meaning “retribution” or “payback,” is more terrifying and arbitrary than any weapon previously known.

One morning, Kay Caton-Walsh, a young officer in Britain’s women’s air service (WAAF) discovers this firsthand. Shacking up for the weekend with a high-ranking (and married) Air Ministry official, she’s lucky to survive a rocket attack, as is her lover. That gives her extra motivation, as if she needed any, to return to her work, which involves analyzing aerial photographs of potential launch sites. The RAF has tried many times to take them out but always fail. So the V2s keep coming, seemingly from nowhere, and entire blocks of London keep getting smashed. Kay would like to fight back more effectively — and when word comes of a mission to track them from Belgium, she persuades her lover to have her sent there.

Meanwhile, Dr. Rudi Graf, a rocketry expert and longtime colleague of Wernher von Braun, who runs the V2 program, prepares the missiles for launch in the Dutch seaside town of Scheveningen. He has little fear of the RAF, whose raids strike the town, surrounding area, or the seashore, never the launch sites. But he does fear the SS, which has strengthened its grip on every aspect of the war effort and looks over his shoulder constantly, sniffing for disloyalty or its perceived equivalent, lack of patriotic zeal.

Wernher von Braun, center, facing, wearing the Nazi Party lapel pin, talks to Fritz Todt, center, Peenemünde, March 1941. Todt’s slave laborers died by the thousands to build von Braun’s underground rocket works there (courtesy Bundesarchiv via Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

And indeed, Graf is no zealot. He tries not to think about what the rockets he has developed actually do to London, or what that means. For the most part, he succeeds at putting action and effect in different compartments of his mind. But Braun originally recruited him to investigate the feasibility of space travel, and Graf can’t separate theory from practice or justify one to the other so easily. He wonders what he’s doing there.

The sixth Harris novel I’ve read, V2 feels the weakest. A few trademarks make their appearance, all right — a sure grasp of history, mastery of detail, physical descriptions. Wherever the narrative goes, Harris grounds you in the scene, whether a London street, a ministerial office, a launch site, or a brothel, all delivered with economy. Early on, for instance, you see how the war has completely changed Scheveningen:

Rain was gusting off the sea, funneled down the side streets between the abandoned hotels. The pier had burned down the previous year. Its blackened iron spars protruded above the running white-capped waves like the masts of the shipwreck. The beach was sown with barbed wire and tank traps. Outside the railway station a few tattered tourist posters from before the war showed a pair of elegant women in striped bathing costumes and cloche hats tossing a ball to one another.

However, unlike, say, An Officer and a Spy, The Second Sleep, or Dictator, the author focuses on public stakes almost to the exclusion of his characters, which results in a less thrilling thriller. By that, I mean plot points like a rocket launch or Kay’s analysis efforts provide most of the tension, fairly humdrum, with few “no — and furthermore” moments, because the characters’ inner lives fail to color the events or enlarge them in significance.

I really don’t care whom Kay sleeps with. Despite feminist overtones to the WAAF war contribution, she’s too much a sex object for my taste, and the love affair that gets her a much sought-after assignment feels contrived. On the other hand, I do want to know what about the rockets compels her; saying she wishes to do something important or useful doesn’t suffice. After all, the war affects every aspect of life, and there are many ways to serve.

Graf has a little more to him; you see the scientist trapped into serving weaponry, though it’s a trap he willingly entered. But, unlike the case with other Harris novels, I don’t see his deep passion or resistance. Mostly, he seems tired and wishes he could somehow take action, though in what way, he’s not sure.

If, however, you want to read a fast-moving outline of how the V2 rockets came to exist and how they worked, this book may satisfy you. You also see why Wernher von Braun deserved a war-crimes trial rather than a cushy job in America’s space program. But if you’ve never read a Robert Harris thriller, don’t start with this one.

Disclaimer: I bought my reading copy of this book from bookshop.org, which shares its profits with independent bookstores.

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