Customer Reviews

Silesian Station (John Russell, Book 2)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Silesian Station" is a fast-paced account of the Third Reich's march toward all out war in the summer and fall of 1939. Author David Downing's protagonist, John Russell, is an Anglo-American journalist who winds up with a foot in every political camp as he tries to protect his German family from being swept up in the coming onslaught. The plot line in this book is driven forward with an almost breathless narrative that includes many intriguing details of how ordinary Germans were living and coping in the pre-war years of Hitler's Reich.

A lot of first-rate research had to have been done by author Downing to put together the exciting and persuasive story that runs from page one. There are fascinating details about the Silesian border areas where the German invasion of Poland eventually takes place--including credible descriptions of how local Nazi party offiicials dominated social life down to the village level. This inevitably involved the state-sponsored bullying and eventual destruction of Jewish communities and individuals. That persecution and the many other forms of it practiced by the Nazis is threaded carefully throughout this account of espionage and international duplicity by the various governments that employ protagonist Russell in this story.

"Silesian Station" is right up there with the writing of Alan Furst, Philip Kerr and, at times, even William Shirer. An excellent read with few false notes by a gifted writer.

In 1939, British journalist John Russell hopes to remain in Berlin if war breaks out between his homeland and the Nazis. However, the Gestapo arrests his girlfriend, actress Effi Koenen, accusing her of spying. They use her as a pawn to get Russell to work for them passing misinformation to the Russians. He already has a deal with the Americans to spy for them in exchange for a passport and offers a deal with the Soviet if they help him flee the Nazis if he needs to escape suddenly.

While he is wheeling and dealing, the parents of Jewish Miriam Rosenfeld worry about the safety of their daughter in Silesia. They send her to live with her Uncle Thomas in Berlin where many more Jews reside; safety in numbers being their theory. When she fails to arrive, Thomas visits his former brother-in-law, Russell asking him to find her as the police refuse to look for a Jew. John agrees.

Though well written and exciting, SILESIAN STATION is more a historical tale rather than a suspense thriller. The espionage segues serve more to bring out life in Nazi Germany's police state whereas the search for Miriam is the exhilarating suspenseful subplot. Fans will enjoy the return of Russell (see ZOO STATION) as he navigates life as a journalist covering the Third Reich.

Harriet Klausner

David Downing's novel (Zoo Station) proceeds with breakneck speed, pausing only for food and sex, but not an overabundance of either. Zoo Station is an apt title, for it captures metaphorically the odd mix of politically caged creatures that populated Germany in 1939.
Downing's research is remarkably intensive, for if one reviews a map of pre-war Berlin, it becomes evident that he describes in accurate detail the geography of the old Berlin. Protagonist John Russell is a journalist, a thoroughly good man and long-time Berlin resident who is an Englishman with an American mother, a German ex-wife, a German son, a German girlfriend, and a communist past.
Downing's sympathetic characters reveal a confusing combination of hope and disbelief that Adolf Hitler's new German is headed in the right direction. Downing's Nazis commit unspeakable acts, as might be expected. Plenty of derring-do on the menu, as Russell finds himself arranging for the escape from Germany of a Jewish family, shedding light on one of the horrendous "medical" plans of the Hitler government, and knuckling under to the demands of Russians who can expose his communist connections.
The plot is complex, the language literate and easy to read, hard to put down. The mood is reminiscent of the works of Alan Furst.

This was a great read - a fine example of historical fiction. I lambasted a book by the same author a few weeks ago (The Moscow Option), but this is what David Downing should be doing. This is the second book in a series that takes place in Nazi Germany - largely Berlin - at the cusp of WW II. There is a certain black humor through out the book; the mood of the German people is nicely captured, and the picture of Germany on the brink of war is brought to life. The central character is a journalist who ends up trying to help people escape some of the horrors of the Nazis, and in doing so becomes a double agent. Perhaps a bit contrived, but it is a great mechanism for doing what historical fiction should do - bring to life a time and era and give words and actions to people you do not ordinarily meet in academic histories. I also recommend his pervious book in this series, Zoo Station

*Silesian Station* picks up immediately from *Zoo Station* in the period immediately prior to the invasion of Poland in August/September 1939. The author continues to explore the slide toward war, the continued tightening of restrictions on the German population and the possibilities of resistance, particularly directed towards saving German Jews.
Contrary to the sole 1* reviewer, this has little to do with Alan Furst's evocations of Europe in the 30s, which are never seen from the British or German perspective. It focuses more explicitly on everyday life, and while it would be hard to say that this has the complexities of a routine Eric Ambler spy vehicle, it does contain significant drama. Again, contrary to the lone dispeptic review, the tension of the book rests on the sheer inevitability of the slide to war, which was well recognized across Europe--few had any real illusions about the Nazis, the only question was how long the war could be sidestepped.
Overall, this is an excellent piece of writing in a field this is admittedly well ploughed, to some extent by Furst and particularly by Kerr's Bernie Gunther. The author has managed to create a plausible character and I for one look forward to at least one sequel.

"Silesian Station" by David Downing, 2008

Some plot spoilers....



In this second book, the hero, John Russell, has just returned from the United States and the World's Fair. While visiting the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair, Russell is able to wrangle an American passport since he is half British and half American. But the American passport requires Russell to do some work for the nascent American espionage service. So, the author, David Downing, has Russell working for both the American and British services, while he commutes, using trains, around 1939 Europe as a news reporter. Then, Russell is approached by the Soviet spy service and then by the German Sicherheitsdienst, the SD. Sicherheitsdienst literally means safety or security service. Russell is therefore employed by the American, British, German and Soviet espionage services. All these twisted and intertwined espionage relationships, however, are not the MAIN plot of this novel.

The main plot centers around a young, innocent Jewish woman who leaves the wilds of Silesia and travels, by rail, into the capitol city of Berlin. Being naïve, she permits herself to picked up at Silesian Station by an official-looking man, who actually kidnaps her, and forces her into prostitution. Almost as a side issue to Russell's complex espionage work and his girl-friend, Effi, John Russell becomes involved in a plan to rescue the Jewish girl and a collection of other captive ladies from the hands of the prostitution ring. Russell uses the Teutonic thoroughness of the official German services to liberate the women. An air raid drill is conducted and ambulances pull up to the house. The house proprietors go along with the orders. The women are put in one ambulance and the men set aside. At the air raid drill, "wounded" civilians, all the men, are designated as having certain types of bandages covered with "red blood". While the ladies are being transported to freedom, a German official interferes and he is hit on the head, so his bandage is covered with actual blood. He no longer interferes.

The author, David Downing, has captured the time, people and place of 1939 Europe. His chief protagonist has to travel to report the news, so the book covers Berlin, some parts of Europe recently incorporated into the Third Reich (e.g. the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and Austria), and Russell's travels are mainly by train, so the author spends a lot of time describing the railway stations in the centers of big and small towns. His writing is so smooth so that you rarely notice that he has slid foreign words and names into the book. He is able to bring a human element to the story. When the "rednecks" attack him, he later describes how his face shows a big bruise. How many movie stars fight almost to the death and never show anything but some redness? Then, when he is visiting farm of the parents of the kidnapped Jewish girl, he describes his desire for coffee rather than hot tea that the mother offers him in the morning. All in all, the author has done a wonderful job of capturing the period and the people.

Silesian Station is a worthy successor to Zoo Station, and I can't wait for the next in this series. The characters are real and sympathetic - they actually have hearts and souls - swept along by the historical events that are sweeping across pre-World War II Europe. There's a richness of detail in David Downing's books that's all too rare in other books about this period, and a nuanced, subtle tension that builds page by page. I hope this series continues well into, and even beyond, World War II. This is superb writing.

This is an enjoyable thriller. If you read the three published books,Zoo,Silesian,and Settin Stations as one you will find
a very good read. The portayal of daily life and the general uncertainty of the times makes these books worth the effort.
It is also a good reminder of why we fought World War Two.

All of his books are great. It is so interesting to feel the intensity of history happening in these novels. I am so intrigued to read the next!!!!!

Having just finished reading Zoo Station, the first book in David Downing's "John Russell" quartet, I eagerly took up book two in the series, Silesian Station, which covers the period immediately preceding the beginning of WWII in September, 1939. Russell is a half-British half-American journalist living in Berlin, where he has been for many years, and has acquired a former wife, a son, a current lover, and deep connections with Germans and Germany. As was so true with many Germans themselves, he is incredulous and disgusted with what has become of a country he loved and respected. His status as an expat-journalist becomes one of fear for himself and his German family, and ultimately of survival itself. While no superhero, Russell is quietly admirable in many respects. His adventures and increasing involvement with victimized Jews and Germans willing to oppose the Nazi regime, provide the plot line for this finely researched historical thriller. One of David Downing's talents is to create believable and vulnerable characters with whom the reader can identify to the point of actually caring about what happens to them, which is not obvious. Having just finished reading Silesian Station, I am already reading Stettin Station, the next book in the series, after which I will no doubt read the final book, Zoo Station. Although Silesian Station is understandable and enjoyable as a stand-alone book, for anyone who has not read Zoo Station, it is advisable to read that book first,