I picked up this book because it wasn’t supposed to be connected to the Slow Horses series. But I’ve read in other places that it might be? I don’t know, use your own judgment if you want to avoid the most minute of spoilers.
Some writers are like exercising: you just have to push through the initial strain in order to get the good stuff. I hate exercising but I can’t think of a better example.
I’ve tried Slow Horses several times and I can’t focus on Herron’s style. I find it overwritten and this is too. But there was something that compelled me to keep moving forward, amidst all the unnecessary digressions and character details. That something is Berlin.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Berlin, and not just because my wife and I honeymooned there. It’s a cosmopolitan oasis in a desert of trash politics. The Nazis never finished higher than third in the city before Hitler took power. And now, it stands as a bulwark of progressivism against the horror that is Alternative für Deutschland, the most right wing party in Germany since the Nazi movement, that currently dominates the territory once comprised by the GDR.
So I held out for Berlin and I was rewarded with one of the best things I read this year. As the plot began to fall into place in past and present, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Herron’s style still frustrates me but he knows the moments he needs to pull back and those moments really shine. Parts of this book rocked me.
I guess I’m going to have to try Slow Horses again, huh?