Reviewed by Rod McLary
Set across two specific time periods [November 1936 and July-August 1945] in Paris and Berlin, this tight and tense thriller chronicles the efforts of Auguste Duchene to locate a Gestapo war criminal SS-Oberführer Volker Sprenger. Duchene is persuaded, by veiled threats of harm to his wife Sabine, into undertaking the search by the Allied forces in post-war Germany. Sabine is a communist and is working with the Russians as they also seek the same man.
As established in the first book of this series [The Paris Collaborator], Duchene has a particular skill in locating missing persons – and it is ostensibly for this reason that he is coerced into searching for the war criminal. But this is a political thriller and there are other and more obscure reasons which are not disclosed to Duchene. In fact, it is a little like an onion skin, layer upon layer of obfuscations are slowly peeled away as Duchene – and the reader – approaches the truth behind his conscription as the hunter.
The sections of the novel set in 1936 provide the backstory and we learn that Sabine is a member of the Communist party and thus is set against Duchene politically, but emotionally there is a deep love between the two and for their young daughter Marienne. Even though in 1936 Marienne is a young child, she is already demonstrating an independence of mind and spirit which serves her well later during the post-war period in Berlin. But The Berlin Traitor is about Duchene and his collaboration with officers of the US Army Intelligence and his chasing down of Volker Sprenger. Berlin in 1945 is a city greatly affected by the Allied bombing and the assault of the Soviet forces in April of that year. It is now divided into West Berlin – comprising three sectors under French, British and United States control respectively – and East Berlin under Soviet control. Duchene’s hunt for Sprenger takes him and his compatriots into each of the sectors.
Already in 1945, the harbingers of a future conflict with the Soviets are emerging and there is a growing tension between the West and the East sectors which on occasion bursts into gunfire. And this emerging threat adds a further dimension and urgency to the search for the war criminal and the ‘schematics’ which he is believed to have hidden. The purpose of the ‘schematics’ is only alluded to through the narrative arc until the bombing of Hiroshima and suddenly connections can be made.
The Berlin Traitor is a political thriller which provides a glimpse into war-torn Berlin and the conditions of those for whom it remains their home. There is a sense of humanity which pervades the novel and this ameliorates the implicit violence which is only a hair trigger away from becoming explicit. It is a story of a man who is forced into acting by the potential consequences of remaining on the sidelines. Duchene is a complex and sympathetic character who can tolerate – and indeed embrace – the ambiguities of love and loyalty.
It is a book well worth the reading.
A. W. Hammond was born in South Africa and now lives in Melbourne and works at RMIT University. He was recently appointed to the Board of Directors at Writers Victoria. He wrote two earlier novels under the name of Alex Hammond both featuring the lawyer Will Harris; and his current novel is the second featuring Auguste Duchene.
The Berlin Traitor
[2023]
by A. W. Hammond
Echo Publishing
ISBN 978 176068 753 3
$32.99; 313pp