This is a great cold war thriller. I really enjoyed it. It was unpredictable and highly engaging. I read it very quickly and really did not want to put it down. It's a novel that will appear to anybody interested in a good thriller based in the cold war era. It flowed and was very well written. Dillon and Christa were both highly credible, their characters worked well with one another. There was nothing about this book that I didn't like. I look forward in the future to reading much more from Jefferson Flanders.

A typical cold war era thriller, rife with suspense and spy craft. It is fun to read, but doesn't stay with you afterwards. One-time read !

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

A spy novel, chock full of history and intrique, An Interlude In Berlin, is well researched but did lack that vibe that makes a book flow and keep the readers interest. While a really good book, I found I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was reading.
Giving it a 3.5 star, and so since NetGalley has whole scores only, moving it up on here to a 4 star. Book published date 03/03/18, so if your a fan of historical spy thrillers this might be right up your alley!

I have to admit this was a very confusing book for me, lots of characters to keep track of, and the topic was just kind of off for me. But, if you like pre-Cold War romantic fiction, then this is the book for you. I loved the story between Dillon Randolph, an American working as a diplomat in Berlin, and Christa, an actress from what becomes East Berlin – basically a wrong side of the tracks romance. Christa works with the KGB to release her brother who is in prison because he spoke out against the new government. The KGB sets her up with Dillon because he is an easy American target to get inside information to develop the East more. Enter Felix Hawes who works for the English Intelligence, and his righthand man, Victor, who are investigating who the “rat” is for the English telling secrets to the Russians and becomes the mastermind of breaking her brother out of prison and putting a downfall to the KGB before the beginning of East and West Germany. And a whole flood of other characters that just really got confusing for me to keep track who each was and who they were working for. In the end, plans don’t go as they wanted. Fast forward two years and you have a little story about the beginning of the building of the Berlin Wall. The Epilogue for me was even more confusing because it takes place as the Berlin Wall is about to come down and introduces even more characters.

I enjoyed the story of Dillon and Christa, I wish there would have been more of their story. In all it was an okay story, not a part of history that I have read much about. Had it been more about Dillon and Christa and not so much on the other secondary characters it would have been better.


I received a copy of this from NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and author Jefferson Flanders in exchange for my honest review.

This is a really fascinating read. I really enjoy reading historical fiction. I found this book really interesting. It has obviously been very well researched. This is a good spy thriller as well. I would definitely recommend it and I will be looking out for more books by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Beginning in 1959 in Berlin, at a time of high tension and double-crossing, this story mixes just enough realism to the plot to maintain credibility, while weaving a most believable plot of spies, conspiracy and double-agents to keep the reader enthralled and needing to know more.

For Dillon Randolph, Berlin is a chance to escape wagging tongues at home and start afresh as a diplomat for the US Mission. Romance was to be avoided at all costs.
Enter Christa, an actress from East Berlin, with a desperate desire to see her brother freed from the clutches of the Stasi.
An East German plot is born: Christa is to seduce the American and 'deliver' him to the authorities on the East German side of the city, in return for her brother's freedom.
When British 'spy catcher', Hawes, learns of the plan, he intercepts in a bid to unmask the leak in British security following the recent threacheries involving Philby & Maclean. Determined to root out another potential defector, Hawes concocts a new conspiracy and draws upon the support of his contacts of old to make it happen.
Of course, as in any good spy story, things don't always go to plan, which is what keeps the reader invested in the story.
A thoroughly good read, with several interesting subplots running alongside the main story.

Career diplomat Dillion Randolph returns home to his censorious father after a nasty scandal with a married woman in Australia. He is given a second chance in post-war Berlin with the U.S. Mission in Berlin but his indiscretion makes him the perfect target for the Soviets. When a beautiful actress suddenly enters his life, is it true love or just a KGB “honey trap?” Double agents have been worrisome for the allies recently but it takes a pragmatic British spy to ferret out the truth behind the alluring Fraulien Schiller.

Flanders has captured the atmosphere of Cold War Berlin perfectly. His description of the city, hemmed in by the Russians, struggling to regain its footing after the war is both poignant and hopeful. Aficionados of John le Carré, Alan Furst and the late Philip Kerr need to add this to their collection.

This is a spy story set in Berlin in 1959, when tensions were high between the US and the Soviets over the future of the city. The Soviets, via the East Berlin Stasi, coerce an attractive actress, Christa Schmitt, into seducing a newly arrived US diplomat, Dillon Randolph, in order to compromise him. Through coincidence this plan comes to the attention of a British intelligence agent, Felix Hawes, who has been sent to Berlin to identify a traitor who is leaking secrets from the British Mission to the Soviets. Hawes sees a way to use the East Berlin honey pot scheme to help him identify the traitor at the British Mission. He approaches Dillon to work with him against the Soviets. Dillon who has fallen in love with Christa is reluctant to place her in jeopardy, but agrees to work with Hawes.

It's an easy read: interesting story with interesting characters in an interesting location. There's all the ingredients of a cold war spy novel: an American diplomat, a beautiful woman, political intrigue, British spy-catchers, nasty East Germans and scheming Russians. Despite that, the end product lacks the edge you expect in spy fiction. It's bland and lifeless, a disappointment in view of the potential for a terrific story. Dillon is difficult to take seriously. As one of the intelligence officers said of him, a diplomat who cannot keep it in his pants is trouble waiting to happen. There's a lingering question why the Russians are interested in him because he is junior without access to secret information. We are told at the end that he has had a brilliant career, but no evidence of that is produced. Dillon comes across as a naive entitled son of a politician who got the Berlin posting solely because of his connections and his ability to speak German. On the other hand, the British spycatcher Hawes comes across as the hero of the story, even though he does not initially catch the mole in the British Mission in Berlin. The end of the book is a bit of a mishmash and oddly introduces a couple of new characters, a photographer and a journalist. There may be a point in including a scenario about he fall of the Berlin Wall, but it escaped me.

The Berlin setting is well presented, there's an authentic feeling about it, which helps in creating atmosphere. The notes at the beginning and ending of the book about the political situation are good for putting the story in context.

It's an OK story that could have been a good one.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of the book to review. The views expressed are my own.

Set in divided Berlin which is 100 miles deep into East Germany. Christa, an actress formerly with the Volkstheater troup, has been recruited by the Stasi as a double agent. She's a willing informer because her brother is being held in East Germany.

She's now with the Neues Theater in the British sector, keeping her eyes wide open. Dillon Randolph, an American with a checkered past and whose father is a US Senator, has recently been assigned to the US Mission diplomatic corps.

Christa conspires to meet Dillon, with the intent of using him to gain information. Dillon, however, is suspicious, and soon agents are recruiting agents who are recruiting agents, and the double-double spying begins.

This is a great look at Cold War politics just before the Berlin Wall is put up.

I read this EARC courtesy of Net Galley and Books Go Social. pub date 03/03/18

I want to thank you for the opportunity to read something which is not normally my genre, which is one of the reasons I requested it. However, perhaps spy novels are just not my thing. What others see as expert craftsmanship I saw as contrivance. I kept losing interest in the plot. It took me a lot longer than an average book of this size would take me to read normally. However, there is a lot of History in this book and there is realism in the description of Historic events. I enjoyed the intrigue of creating a defector on paper then attempting to turn it into reality. I have wavered between 2 and 3 stars as a rating and feel that it deserves the higher rating.