Customer Reviews

Brandenburg

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Middle-aged Dr. Rudi Rosenharte is about to see his former life as a Stasi foreign agent turn his present life as a renowned art historian upside down. The scene is set in East Germany in September 1989. Rosenharte's passion at this stage is to set aside the decadent alcoholic lifestyle he's lived for many years in order to free his twin brother, Konrad, from a GDR prison. Konrad has been mistreated by the Stasi and is in need of dental, physical and mental treatment for his declining health. Rosenharte's energy is to cooperate with the Stasi to ensure that Konrad lives and is reunited with his wife Else and two young boys.

Rosenharte has become an authority in the art world and travels frequently between cities to lecture. During trips to Trieste, he's become acquainted with a person of interest to the Stasi officials concerned with treason to the German Democratic Republic. Stasi officials use information in ruthless fashion in order to intimidate citizens to inform upon one another. Rudi's former life as a secret agent comes to bear when he comes face to face with a woman he believes to have died, a former love who possessed important information against enemies of East Germany.

Believing that his cooperation with the Stasi will free his brother, Rosenharte sets in motion a series of actions that conflict with his chief goal, that of freeing Konrad. He possesses the means to gain vital information not only for the Stasi but for American, British and Russian agents as well. The game plays out with his former lover, Annalise Schering, holding the key to intelligence the Stasi must have. Rosenharte has to abandon his former lover (or a reasonable facsimile of her) or become a turncoat agent and cooperate with foreign agencies. He cannot jeopardize Konrad's state in the process.

Henry Porter has written this spy novel in the fashion of a John le Carre thriller and brings the reader along for a first-rate ride back in time. The GDR experiences the tumult of a people long oppressed by a police state, harassed with unemployment and suppression of intellectual freedoms. The wall between East and West Germany is a scene of protests, both silent and proactive. Porter writes the times with political accuracy and develops the characters with passion for their beliefs.

Stasi inquisitors are truly villainous. Western agents want information and are willing to cross barriers to obtain it. A surprising Russian presence solidifies the murky political waters at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Timing is crucial to Rosenharte's success and coincides with the barriers broken between East and West in Berlin. Characters are fictitious with the exception of the Russian agent Vladimir, later known to the world as Vladimir Putin.

At times, multiple plot layers make for tedious sleuth work on the part of the reader. Difficult Germanic names and associations with Nazi history take concentration to understand. When the tangles unfurl into an understandable reality at the finale, one applauds the author for a novel well done. Though fictionalized, one can feel the climate of the historical date when Berlin became a free city. BRANDENBURG GATE is a testament to those who sought freedom from oppression. Espionage in the finest tradition.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

Excellent spy potboiler set in the waning days of European communism. Author Henry Porter interweaves the East German secret police (STASI), British intelligence, the CIA and the KGB into this story of a world-weary East German academic who is blackmailed into serving the GDR in a dubious espionage plot. That first caper, lasting no more than the first several pages of this lengthy book, opens the door to what is the vast rat's nest of the main story line here. The best part of this novel, in my opinion, is its detailed description of the gradual public uprising against the GDR regime as the Soviet Block begins to visibly disintegrate. The author conveys a highly credible understanding of how the citizens of East Germany finally reached the end of their patience with the desperate living that was inflicted on them by their government through the STASI.

As good as this book is, it could have used some adept editing in places to tighten it up some. For example, there are a number of oft-repeated lines coming from the antagonist about his imprisoned brother that become tiresome by the middle of the book.

Despite a few flaws, this is an excellent read that reaches its best and most credible moments at the end of the book.

Porter makes an interesting linkage between the closing of the Cold War and the current war on terrorism. En route, he also supplies us with an indepth view of what life was like in East Germany, under the scrutiny of the Stasi.

The book is fairly mild, as far as its depictions of mayhem. Also piquant is how the Soviet Union and the KGB come off as relatively benign, compared to the Stasi. Vladimir Putin makes a fictional cameo appearance as a KGB representative in East Germany in 1989, and is portrayed as a decent bloke.

Porter also reminds us of how innovative the Web really is. Something too easily taken for granted now. But in 1989, it was cutting edge stuff, that really did presage a cultural revolution. He found a neat way to tie the political events of 1989 with the murmurings coming out of CERN about a global hyperlinked network.

I liked the story even though it got a little long-winded. As much as liking the story was reading the descriptions of Berlin and Leipzig, especially the area around the Berlin Wall. Having traveled to both those places in 2005 and had a young tour guide describe the Monday prayer services in St. Thomas Church, made the text seem alive. The seemingly endless droning on about the conditions of the prison did little to enhance the richness of the descriptions of the cities and the events. Read it if you've visited this part of Germany or are looking for something about the final minutes of the reign of terror by the Stasi.

"Brandenburg" is Henry Porter's fourth novel and won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller in 2005. The book is set in East Germany's last few months, leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The book's hero is Rudi Rosenharte, an academic and former (unwilling) Stasi operative. He has (as the book opens) been brought out of retirement by the Stasi - again, against his wishes - for an operation. However, as his brother and his brother's family have been imprisoned pending his co-operation, he doesn't really have much of a choice. Konrad, Rudi's twin brother, is a film-maker and a known dissident; he has been in prison before, and Rudi fears too long a stretch might kill him. The brothers haven't had the easiest of lives. They were born in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II to high-ranking Nazis. While this would be something of a stigma in most countries, the burden seems to be that much greater in communist East Germany. Their father saw action in Russia and in defence of Berlin. When their parents died towards the end of the war, the brothers were adopted and raised by their housekeeper. However, while neither brother is particularly enamoured with communism, they certainly haven't adopted their parents' beliefs.

Although most of the action takes place in East Germany, the book opens in Trieste - where Rudi has been sent to meet Annalise Schering. The only problem is that Annalise is dead, having committed suicide in Brussels some fifteen years previously. Rudi was not only her contact at this time - she was supplying the Stasi with classified information - but he was also her lover. However, after her suicide, he was placed in a rather difficult situation and didn't inform his superiors of her death. Now, as far as the Stasi are concerned, she is alive and wants to make contact again : the assumption is she want to resume passing information to the GDR. This 'new' Annalise is insisting that Rudi is the only person she's willing to make contact with. However, in reality, the operation has been set up by Robert Harland and Alan Griswald - representatives of the British and American intelligence agencies. They are particularly interested in alleged links between the Stasi and Abu Jamal, a Syrian terrorist. Rudi, the only person who can apparently obtain this information, is what they plan to use in order to obtain it.

This is a very enjoyable book - it's very tense throughout, with a genuine air of suspicion, verging at times on paranoia. It also appears to have been meticulously researched - the author's note and the acknowledgements at the end of the book make for very interesting reading. However, don't read them until you've finished reading the story itself - it'll give away a couple of twists and surprises if you do ! Highly recommended.

Henry Porter sets his book in an unusual time for most spy stories, just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the GDR. He also does the reader a service by being meticulous in the environment - physical, social and mental - of a Cold War country at its apogee and this is heightened by what the reader knows of the imminent downfall of that way of life.

He also does the reader a service - at first - by introducing us to the main character, Dr. Rudi Rosenharte, a former STASI agent (sort-of, he was not very good apparently) and a current art history scholar. The protagonist, and the writer, is at his best during the first half of the book where his melancholy matches the dreariness of his surroundings. Porter does well in mixing the humdrum of life on the other side of the Cold War, where modern mixes with the antiquated and paranoia of the state contends against the need for people to express themselves freely, albeit privately.

Many reviewers peg Porter to Le Carre, but I would suggest it is better to gauge Porter against another modern spy author, Alan Furst, see Night Soldiers: A Novel. Like Furst, Porter is trying for the internal monologue punctuated by bits of frenetic and thrilling action. Like Furst, Porter has a protagonist who is duty bound to personal loyalty and love than moral outrage. And like Furst, Porter is exploring geographies with great detail that most authors of the spy novel often overlook.

However, unlike Furst, he does not have all the notes right. Previous reviewers suggested that some middle-of-the-book editing would be in order, and I agree after just completing it. I would also add that it would be fruitful to better explore Rosenharte's arc from so-so spy to art historian. In addition, I was disappointed when Porter did not explore with Rosenharte how his view of art affected his actions in the novel. In essence, I thought it a missed opportunity to have a more developed intellectual side to the main character (and the villains), but Porter opted for a direct emotional appeal with both the motivations of Rosenharte, his allies and enemies. The good guys were all good, if a bit jaded - though I did not believe that for long, they were basically noble - and the bad guys were bad, really bad. I think that the re-emerging of the spy from the academic using an "old, forgotten muscles" cliche is interesting to a point, and very Hollywood (see the 1985 movie Target for a great-bad example), but I would be more interested in reading about Rosenharte's brain rather than seeing the heart that is continually on his sleeve.

Finally, I will say this, Porter makes some great secondary characters. I would be most interested in reading more about Harland & The Bird (British spies), Griswald (the CIA guy) and even about the mysterious KGB Lt. Col. (spoiler if I said more, a nice little surprise in the end). Overall a good read, a tad long, a tad too weepy, but some thrilling scenes throughout.

A rare novel, riveting and finally true to the socialist nature of East Germany's and the Soviets' brutality. What a breath of fresh air! No whitewashing here, none.

This novel suffers from two flaws which seriously inhibited enjoyment. First, it seemed as if the author had learned all about espionage from other novels about espionage. Thus any insights seemed hackneyed, second-hand and improbable, and the spy-masters from the four secret services involved in this novel were nothing more than interchangeable cliches. None spoke with a unique, individual voice, and only the names differentiated each.

Second, this overstuffed compendium of spy fiction cliches desperately needed a courageous editor to help the author focus on what was original and potentially intriguing about this novel, the setting in the last days of the GDR, and the collapsing of all certainties about who was on the side of the angels, from whatever self-interested motives, and who was not. A disciplined red pencil, and some serious coaching could have conjured from this labyrinthine mish-mash the taut, 250-page thriller struggling to emerge.

Finally, despite a potentially appealing protagonist, the author constantly over-editorialized, as if fearful that his readers would not quite grasp whatever fairly basic point he was trying to make. Again, a good editor might have skimmed the over-telling, and created space in which the reader could think, project, puzzle and empathize with the characters.

Among the first-tier writers of spy thrillers (Furst, Steinhauer, Downing) I think that Porter, with his captivatingly complex plot, engaging characters, and portrayal of East Germany's brutally paranoid Stasi, has written probably the best book of this genre I've yet read. And I've read a lot. While a prior review characterized this book as a "potboiler," which means a formulaic reiteration, I found "Brandenburg Gate" to be anything but. It's first-class, creative entertainment.I strongly recommend it to anyone with a taste for a spy thriller that's original, intelligent, confidently stylish, and maintains firm grounding in reality.

A great book set mostly in East Germany in 1989 as the Cold War was coming to an end.