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Published 7th July 2022 by Aries, Head of Zeus.
From the cover of the book:
The new blockbuster thriller from Graham Hurley set against the final stages of the Second World War.Confidant of Goebbels. Instrument of Stalin. What's the worst that could happen
January 1945. Wherever you look on the map, the Thousand Year Reich is shrinking. Even Goebbels has run out of lies to sweeten the reckoning to come. An Allied victory is inevitable, but who will reap the spoils of war?
Two years ago, Werner Nehmann's war came to an abrupt end in Stalingrad. With the city in ruins, the remains of General Paulus' Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets, and Nehmann was taken captive. But now he's riding on the back of one of Marshal Zhukov's T-34 tanks, heading home with a message for the man who consigned him to the Stalingrad Cauldron.
With the Red Army about to fall on Berlin, Stalin fears his sometime allies are conspiring to deny him his prize. He needs to speak to Goebbels – and who better to broker the contact than Nehmann, Goebbels' one-time confidant?
Having swapped the ruins of Stalingrad for the wreckage of Berlin, the influence of Goebbels for the machinations of Stalin, and Gulag rags for a Red Army uniform, Nehmann's war has taken a turn for the worse. The Germans have a word for it:
Katastrophe.
Katastrophe is part of the SPOILS OF WAR Collection, a thrilling, beguiling blend of fact and fiction born of some of the most tragic, suspenseful, and action-packed events of World War II. From the mind of highly acclaimed thriller author GRAHAM HURLEY, this blockbuster non-chronological collection allows the reader to explore Hurley's masterful storytelling in any order, with compelling recurring characters whose fragmented lives mirror the war that shattered the globe.
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January, 1945: The war in Europe is in its death throes. The allies are advancing on Berlin and German territory is shrinking by the day. Even Goebbels, the master of propaganda, can no longer hide the fact that Hitler's dream of the Thousand Year Reich is now in tatters.
As the Allies try to out manoeuvre each other with powerplays to achieve a peace that gets them the pick of the spoils of war, Stalin is out to stake his claim to what he feels is his by right. At the centre of his scheming are two men who thought their lives would come to an end in the rubble of Stalingrad... two men who have each spent the last two years trying separately to survive as prisoners of war in Russian hands.
Journalist Werner Nehmann has been pulled from the horror of the gulags to be sent back to Germany with a message from Stalin for his former boss Goebbels. What he doesn't know is that his old friend, German military intelligence officer Willi Schultz, who barely survived interrogation at the hands of the NKVD in Moscow, is also being sent back to Germany on a mission for Stalin - with a letter for Heimlich Himmler. Meanwhile, MI5 agent Tam Moncrieff has been set a task by his spymasters to try to discover what exactly is going on between British and American agents and a German General in Switzerland, as they try to put into action their own secret plans to gain an edge in the fall of Nazi Germany. Are they each heading for Katastrophe?
I first came across the Spoils of War books from Graham Hurley last year when I read the spectacular Kyiv, about Operation Barbarossa and the siege of Kyiv in 1941. Impressed with the way Hurley immersed me right into the compelling history of World War II, bringing to life the complex political and military events of the time through the use of excellent characterisation, and throwing in a good dollop of delicious spy shenanigans, I couldn't wait to read more.
The latest book in the series, Katastrophe, takes us into the fascinating realms of a different period of World War II - the months leading up to the surrender of Nazi Germany. The scale of this book is immense, and covers a lot of ground considering the timescale it focuses on is rather brief, starting at is does in January 1945 and ending around VE Day in May of the same year. The story follows the adventures of three main characters who will be familiar to fans of this series, Nehmann, Schultz and Moncrieff, as they go about their undercover exploits, and through them we get an intriguing glimpse of the lay of the land in a number of European locations - most importantly in Stalin's Russia, and in crumbling Nazi Germany.
I have read a little about the happenings of this time, when the Allies were vying for position, and more than one significant Nazi heavy-weight was making a play to ensure that they would survive the fall of the Third Reich - but I have never read anything that lays everything out in such an engaging way as this, turning the complicated history into a cracking page-turner of an affair that keeps you gripped throughout. Hurley touches on the significant details of the political and military events that dictated how history played out through the use of characters from the pages of the history books, and those of his own invention, and blends fact and fiction to fashion a gripping story of danger and double dealing that keeps you on the edge of your seat. His skill in concentrating on the people involved and tying you to their fate works so well, whilst conveying a wealth of history at the same time.
To go into all the themes that Hurley packs into this book would be impossible here because there are so many, but the insight he displays into how these events influence what follows once Germany falls is impressive. I was really struck by the way he explores the interplay between Britain, America and Russia, especially the fracturing of relationships, the misconceptions, and the naked ambition of Stalin that inevitably leads on to the start of the Cold War. There is a rich seam to be mined in terms of the world of espionage, and what the secret services might look like post-war, that is very thought provoking too - made extra gritty by Moncrieff's continued sparring with the yet unmasked traitor Kim Philby. I also have to say that I have rarely seen the black art and chilling effectiveness of propaganda so thoroughly laid bare in a work of fiction.
This book has everything you want from historical fiction. It's beautifully constructed, tense and completely absorbing, with the kind of characters that sweep you along and make history a living, breathing thing. As someone obsessed with Cold War fiction, I adored the way Hurley plants the seeds for what comes post-war, and I very much hope he takes up his pen to delve into where history goes next. In any case, wherever his writing adventures take him I will certainly be along for the ride.
This book can be read as a stand-alone, but is so much better if you have read other books from the Spoils of War series - I am gradually working my way through them all and highly recommend you do the same if this period of history is your bag! I promise it will send you down a wealth of rabbit holes!
Katastrophe is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Head of Zeus for sending me a hardcover copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Ransom PR for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Graham Hurley worked for ITV for fifteen years as an award winning documentary director/producer. Networked documentaries included the discovery and filming of the seabed remains of the Titanic; Richard Branson's near-fatal crossing of the North Atlantic in a hot-air balloon; an investigative account of the Brighton bombing; four freezing weeks in the high Canadian Arctic exploring the last of the Eskimo culture; plus revisionist documentaries on the retreat to Dunkirk (Comrades in Arms) and the post D-Day thrust into Europe (The War Within).
Graham is the author of the acclaimed Faraday and Winter crime novels. Two of the critically lauded series have been shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Award for Best Crime Novel. The first Wars Within novel, Finisterre, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.
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