"Our Friends In Berlin", set in London in 1941, is a well-written atmospheric novel with a unique point of view that captures the period well and has a couple of original plot twists but which I found a little too bloodless to be satisfying.

The story focuses on three main characters: Jack Hoste, an Englishman running a network of "Fifth Columnists", English Nazi sympathisers and ex-members of the British Union of Fascists, to gather intelligence for Berlin; Marita Pardoe, wife of an interned leader of the British Fascist Union, now in hiding but still plotting against the British state and Amy Strallen a young English woman, partner in an at-the-time-innovative marriage bureau and former friend of Marita Pardo.

At the start of the novel, I found myself quite disoriented (in a good way) by the idea of a spy novel set in London during the Blitz where the German spies are the heroes. I didn't know where it was going but I enjoyed the way the ever-so-English almost "Mrs Minerva" atmosphere was made oxymoronic when applied to descriptions of "Little England" fifth columnists meeting discuss how to accelerate Hitler's liberation of Europe.

There's a strong plot here, some genuinely tense action scenes and an authentic (for an age I have no direct experience of) period feel. I rather liked the way in which Jacks' colleagues were brought to life and I loved the descriptions of the workings of the Marriage Bureau.

So why aren't I gushing with enthusiasm?

Partly it's because Jack Hoste shows so much sang-froid he eventually comes across as either emotionally crippled or so fatalistic that he's just going through the motions of living. This may be authentic but I found it hard to engage with.

I also struggled with the way the novel told Amy Strallen's story. The episodes describing her pre-war relationship with Marita were important to the plot and to character exposition but they felt dumped into the narrative, disrupting the flow rather than adding to the momentum. Focusing the final chapter on Amy felt like a last-ditch attempt for broader significance that didn't quite make it.
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During the summer of 1941 London is facing the height of the Blitz. The victory in the battle of Britain throughout the previous year now seems a long time ago as Nazi bombers conduct their nightly assault on the city.

Jack Hoste is leading an exhausting double life. He manages a surprisingly extensive network of Nazi sympathisers with whom he arranges clandestine meetings to collate the various morsels of potentially valuable intelligence that his contacts have gathered. He is, however, merely playing a part, being a member of the intelligence service engaged on monitoring the German fifth column within British society. While his network is large and enables him to stifle what might otherwise have been a dangerous flow of information to the enemy, he recognises that he is not engaging with the most dangerous elements of the fifth column. He has his sights on Marita Pardoe, known for years as a prominent and eloquent Nazi sympathiser, but, since the start of the war, disappeared from view. Jack and his colleagues are left with just one potential route to discover the whereabouts of Ms Pardoe, through her former friend and companion, Amy Strallen.

Quinn builds up a tense atmosphere very effectively, adeptly conveying the grimness of life in the Blitz, and the sheer sense of exhaustion and despair with which Londoners had come to view the war by that stage. There is constant danger from the nightly bombing raids which, in addition to the primary damage and loss of life they strew randomly about the city, leave everyone on edge from lack of sleep. Food is already in short supply, and the blackout imposes its own form of curfew, curtailing the citizens’ freedom to engage in even the most mundane activities such as a visit to the pub, or an evening stroll. Trust is also in diminishing supply, and Hoste’s attempts to befriend Miss Strallen do not initially end well.

This is a very entertaining and well-crafted espionage novel. The plot is intricate, and well managed, with the various threads all following impressively sinuous paths, and is notable for its immense plausibility. ( )

To be fair, this book is suffering from my having read it so soon after Kate Atkinson's "Transcription", which covers much of the same ground. It was a quick and easy read, and I enjoyed it, although parts of it stretched credulity. Could middle class people in southern England really afford to pay for the services of a marriage bureau by 1944?

The section set in 1935, which was suddenly inserted into the wartime narrative, felt longer than necessary. Then the narrative jumped from 1941 to 1944, during which time Jack had apparently kept his deception going (how? I wanted to know why Marita had apparently been content with the status quo for all these years). Amy was described both as having forgotten all about Jack and also as still having a bit of a thing for him. Jack's character never really came to life and Amy brought things to a head at the end by behaving in a totally stupid fashion. The final chapter confused me - what was its purpose

SPOILER

(apart from Amy seeing Marita on the bus)? ( )

‘Our Friends in Berlin’ by Anthony Quinn tells a story of London in World War Two seldom told. It is a spy novel but not a thriller. It focuses on the individuals concerned and has a deceptive pace which means the threats, when they come, are more startling. Jack Hoste is not who he seems to be. He is not a tax inspector; he is not looking for a wife. He is a special agent who tracks down Nazi spies. And at night he is an ARP warden.
The juxtaposition of Hoste’s life of secrets is set nicely against that of Amy Strallen who works at the Quartermaine Marriage Bureau. Ordinary life does go on in London during the Luftwaffe bombing and Amy must match clients together, a matter of instinct rather than calculation. In order to be matched with the right person, clients are asked to tell the truth about what they are seeking, truths which may have been disguised or hidden until now. Client requests include ‘a lady with capital preferred’ and ‘not American’. Then one day she meets a new client who seems oddly reluctant to explain what he is looking for. The client is Jack Hoste and he doesn’t want a wife, he is searching for Marita Pardoe, a suspected Nazi sympathiser and friend of Amy in the Thirties. What unfolds is a story of spying, gentle romance, betrayal, fanaticism and the life of living in a bombed city.
Jack and Amy seem to run on parallel tracks, veering towards and then away from each other, both romantically unsure, both allow the real world to get in the way. And get in the way it does, in the shape of Marita. Quinn is excellent at building characters, he makes you care for them and that’s what keeps you reading. In a time of war, decisions are often made recklessly but Jack and Amy draw back from doing this. Both are people of honour, making the secrets they must keep and the lies they must tell all the more pertinent. The nature of truth is a theme wriggling its way through every page.
Anthony Quinn is a favourite author of mine, his novels are each quite different and I will read everything he writes. I read this one quickly.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ ( )

When Jack Hoste comes to the marriage bureau that Amy Strallen works in, he doesn't seem that eager to find a wife. however Amy keeps 'bumping into' Jack and she grows to like this mild-mannered accountant. After getting caught in a bomb raid Amy goes back to Jack's flat and discovers a collection of iron crosses. She immediately thinks Jack is a Nazi agent and reports him. But Jack is a double agent and Amy has been targeted because of her friendship with a much bigger fish.
Anthony Quinn is a superb writer of historical fiction which tells very human stories and if one approaches this book with that in mind one cannot help but admire. This book is being purported to be a rip-roaring spy thriller, that it is not. There is some violence and some intrigue but it is more about the relationships between people in the war and how emotions can be suppressed. The writing is wonderful and I felt attached to both Amy and Jack, they are likeable characters holding secrets. The plot is carefully constructed and the two violent incidents seem to come out of the blue. I have loved every book that Quinn has written and this is no exception. ( )