If the cold doesn't kill you, the truth will.

As ever, the latest story in David Young's Stasi series demands your attention with a chilling strapline, an intriguing cover and a tale of an impossible task. Karin Muller wants to know the truth about the murders she investigates, but in 1970s East Germany, the truth is irrelevant. Fear and mistrust are endemic in a world where anyone - your neighbour, your friend, your daughter - could be a Stasi informant. Prepare to be chilled to the bone.

-- What's it about? --

When Major Karin Muller and her team, Kriminaltechniker Jonas Schmidt and Hauptmann Werner Tilsner, are sent to investigate an apparent accidental death on the island of Rugen, they know that there must be more to the case than the local authorities are willing to divulge. Besides which, who would leave their house to go shopping, dressed in light indoor clothes, during East Germany's bitterly cold 'catastrophe Winter'? When Muller recognises the corpse she knows it was murder: the real question may be whether there was anyone who didn't want to kill them.

As always, the Stasi (more formally known as East Germany's 'Ministry of Security' - the secret police) are determined to hush up any scandal, so Muller's team are forced to operate covertly. That's par for the course by now, (although Muller wonders that they've been allowed to investigate at all,) but operating at all in the midst of a snow storm that has caused at least one death, a power cut and snowdrifts as high as some of the island's houses is posing some new problems. Young's winter is fierce, relentless and threatens to destroy anyone foolish enough to stand in its way. Much like the Stasi, in fact, who dislike Muller so much I am forced to wonder how she has survived so far, never mind how she will survive when forced to venture out onto the frozen Ostsee...

-- What's it like? --

Thrilling. Chilling. Breath-taking. Young's narrative unearths a constantly shifting mixture of hope and cruelty; a community in which honorifics are traded freely but deep mistrust and fear thrives underneath the surface at all times.

I love the shocks in this series because they always ring horrifyingly true. After admitting to behaviour that could be considered horribly cold hearted and opportunistic, Irma Behrendt, a main voice in 'Stasi Winter' and 'Stasi Child', exhorts readers to consider, 'Would you really have done anything different?' It is a particular strength of Young's characterisation and story telling that we are not easily able to reject this uncomfortable question.

How would any of us have fared in this brutal Republic, where having a loving family makes you vulnerable to persistent manipulation from the almost omnipotent Stasi? Would we bend? Would we break? What makes someone decide to conform or flee? This has always been a concern of Young's Stasi novels, but here it is the central interest of this enthralling Spy thriller.

-- Final thoughts --

Over the course of this series, Muller has begun to appreciate that the communist Republic she believes in does not always believe in her or in its own citizens, but she has maintained a certain naivety that allowed her to conclude the previous book with a real sense of personal agency. Now, Young uses the return to Rugen (originally featured in 'Stasi Child', Young's excellent debut novel) to disillusion his earnest detective with what may prove to be a knockout punch.

You could read this as a standalone book; Young explains all the necessary background at the relevant points. However, these do amount to spoilers of the previous books and, as they are all engrossing reads, I would strongly advise reading them in order if you like the sound of this. ( )

At the end of the previous book in this series set in 1970s East Germany, I wondered whether there would be another one, given that Major Karin Muller had resigned her post in the Kriminalpolizei, in disgust at the covering up of crimes from the Nazi era. However, she is back 18 months later, by the simple expedient of her boss having refused to accept her resignation, accumulated her backpay and not had her chucked out of her grace and favour lavish apartment. I'm glad she's back, as this is the fifth novel in a great series. That said, this had a less original plot than the others, being effectively a sequel to the first novel in the series, featuring a young girl Irma Behrendt now making her second attempt to escape her life in East Germany for the West, this time across the frozen ice of the Ostsee in the bitter winter of 1978/79. Despite this slight lack of originality, the chase sequences were dramatic and exciting, with the reader having mixed feelings given the ambiguous motives of both pursued and pursuers. By the end of the novel, Karin is back but has been demoted back to Oberleutnant. I look forward to seeing what happens next. ( )

Publisher’s synopsis:
In 1978 East Germany nothing is as it seems. The state’s power is absolute, history is re-written, and the ‘truth’ is whatever the Stasi says it is.
So when a woman’s murder is officially labelled ‘accidental death’, Major Karin Müller of the People’s Police is faced with a dilemma. To solve the crime, she must disregard the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life – and the lives of her young family – in danger.
As the worst weather in living memory holds Germany in is freeze, Müller must entangle a web of state secrets and make a choice: between truth and lies, justice and injustice, and, ultimately, life and death.

Two years ago I read "A Darker State" (since renamed "Stasi State"), the third book in this Karin Müller series, enjoying it enough to give it a 4* rating and to reflect that I was tempted to catch up on the two earlier books. However, that ambition was thwarted by the ever-constant dilemma of ‘too many books, too little time’ and other books demanding my attention! So, when #5 was offered in a Readers First draw, I had no hesitation in trying to win a copy so that I could catch up with what had been happening in Karin’s life. However, for various reasons, I didn’t find this story either as satisfying or engrossing to read.
A major irritation for me was that it quickly became clear that not only did Karin recognise the murder victim as someone from her past, but she also had an historical relationship with Irma, a central character in this story who also had a significant history with the victim. With the story being told alternately from Karin’s perspective in the third-person narrative, and from Irma’s in first-person accounts, the reader is gradually enabled to discover the back-history of their relationship and the consequential links with the victim. However, for me this part of the story-telling relied far too heavily on constant references back to events which had happened years earlier and, rather than adding something essential to the story, there were times when it was distracting because, paradoxically, I found myself wanting to know even more details about their back-story, adding to my irritation that I wasn’t able to simply lose myself in the story I should have been focusing on!
In spite of these irritations there were some aspects of the author’s story-telling which reminded me of why I’d enjoyed the earlier book. It was good to be reacquainted with Karin, a strong, ambitious young woman who was clearly continuing to struggle to reconcile the often-conflicting aspects of her personal and professional life and her political ideals. I find her a likeable, convincingly flawed, complex character; she is determined, resourceful, prepared to challenge authority, often to her own detriment, but also prepared to be pragmatic when necessary and yet she has an underlying sensitivity which, whilst most often focused on her family, also shows itself when she seeks justice for victims.
I also enjoyed the many ways in which the author used his considerable knowledge of the country and its history to create a convincing picture of what life was like in the DDR during the 1970s. He very powerfully evoked the ever-present tensions created by the absolute power wielded by the oppressive Stasi regime, with the constant surveillance generating fear and paranoia in the country’s residents. He used this to provide a credible background against which the reader could more readily understand the motivations underlying some of the actions, and reactions, of his various characters.
Much of the action in this story is set against a background of extreme winter-weather conditions, with deep snow and ice creating hazardous conditions which made even the simplest of trips outside perilous. The attempts of some of the characters to escape to the West across the frozen Ostsee (Baltic) were death-defyingly dangerous, providing much of the dramatic, nail-biting tension in the story. There were times when the author’s descriptions of snow drifts, blizzard conditions and rapidly falling temperatures were so evocative that they made me want to put on several extra layers of clothing … I think it’s no exaggeration to say that the weather was a central character in the development of the tension-filled plot! I think this is one aspect of the storytelling which deserves 5* in its own right, and there are enough interesting themes for it to be a 4* read for book groups. However, my overall disappointment was such that, sadly, I feel able to give it an overall rating of only 3*.
With thanks to Readers First for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )