Zieger is an ageing Stasi bureaucrat, author of the eponymous manual, convinced he is dying and strangely obsessed with a young waitress. As the Berlin Wall crumbles, so does Zeiger's undrstanding of his life and his relationships. There are links to the fate of an East German mathematician, Held (German for hero), who is betrayed by Zieger during an investigation into US research into teleportation.

This is a rather strange book, as the title might indicate. Zieger's manual lists a series of strategies to weaken the resolve of suspects underinterrogation and at times it feels like such straategies are being perpetrated on the reader. The pacing is plodding and the text full of extraneous and unnecessary detail. The text itself reads like a translation of a German document, with odd phrasings and literal translations.

It's difficult to sense what the author is trying to achieve. Many readrs will already know of the paranoia of the East German state and the treachery of neighbours spying on each other. However, the banality of evil is well expressed in the actions of the many Stasi bureaucrats.

There is little evidence of the dark humour promised and the ending is biarre and confusing.

Sadly I found this novel a tad dull. It has a great sense of time and place but I just couldn't get into it.

It might be because I'm forever fascinated by Cold War history - and East Germany in particular - but I absolutely loved this book! With a captivating cast of characters, Hofmann weaves an intriguing mystery - a tale of romance, secrecy and betrayal which is enticingly unravelled beneath the shadow of the collapse of the Berlin wall. A fantastic first novel - surreal and strangely original.

I am a sucker for a book with a really good title. Perhaps I shouldn't judge a book by its cover (or even more so its title) because, sadly, 'The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures' just didn't really work for me.

I wanted to like it. I wanted to find bits of it funny and other bits intriguing but way too much just went right over my head. I'm entirely willing to be persuaded that this is a very clever book; sadly, it might have been the wrong kind of clever for me.

The story is set in East Berlin, not too long before the wall will come down. That DID work for me. I was in Budapest just a few months before everything changed. It's also set earlier, in the days of the Stasi knowing everything about everybody and using it to their advantage. Our rather low key 'hero' is Zeiger, the man who wrote the book (literally) on controlling people through demoralisation techniques. I think I 'got' that joke but not too many others. I liked his friend Held who might - or might not - have known the secret of teleportation - and the young woman at the cafe nearby where Zeiger liked to hang out. Her link to the story was quite clever.

On the whole, though, the biggest problem was I couldn't really find any reason to actually CARE about any of the characters. I felt like I was reading somebody's overly long thought experiment rather than a novel.

I received a free ARC from Netgalley and the publishers in return for an honest review. I'm sorry I didn't like it better.

In a world of spycraft, betrayals, and reversals, a Stasi officer is unravelled by the cruel system he served and by the revelation of a decades-old secret. On November 9, 1989, Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi officer in the twilight of his career, is deteriorating from a mysterious illness. Alarmed by the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his regular café with whom he is obsessed, he chases a series of clues throughout Berlin. The details of Lara’s vanishing trigger flashbacks to his entanglement with Johannes Held, a physicist who, twenty-five years earlier, infiltrated an American research institute dedicated to weaponizing the paranormal. Now, on the day the Berlin Wall falls and Zeiger’s mind begins to crumble, his past transgressions have come back to haunt him. Who is the real Lara, what happened to her, and what is her connection to these events? As the surveiller becomes the surveilled, the mystery is both solved and deepened, with unexpected consequences.

The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures is a thriller set against the backdrop of the last, chaotic Cold War days in East Germany and effortlessly blends high-stakes espionage and surrealist humour. It's every bit as stirring as a le Carré novel and given this is a debut I find it even more impressive how intelligent, sophisticated and gripping it was. Granted, it took a little longer than usual to be hooked as the author took the time to set the scene but once the story progressed I was quickly caught up in the whirlwind of danger, excitement and adrenaline-pumping action. It's a profound novel with a complex and fascinating central character in Zeiger. Dark and haunting, this is a book for those who enjoy bizarre fiction with a touch of class. Above all, it teaches us that no matter how adverse and dehumanising the situation there are always those willing to resist, rebel and fight to the death for what they believe in. Many thanks to riverrun for an ARC.

On November 9th Bernrd Zeiger, a Stasi officer in the twilight of his career, is deteriorating from a mysterious illness. Alarmed by the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his regular cafe with whom he was obsessed, he chases a series of clues throughout Berlin. Now, on the day the Berlin wall falls, Zeiger's mind begins to crumble, his past transgressions come back to haunt him. Who is the real Lara and what happened to her? What is her connection to these events?

Bernard Zeiger seems to have I'll health. He's desperate to find Lara, the waitress at his local cafe. But who is Lara and what does Zeiger want her for? The book certainly makes you think as it veers off in different directions. The story is not what I thought it was going to be but I still enjoyed it.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Quercus Books and the author Jennifer Hofmann for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It's well written and the plot is interesting but I didn't feel any connection to the story it fell flat.
It could be my mood or it's not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

It took a little while to become absorbed in this book but it grabbed hold of me after a while and wouldn't let go. It's set in Cold War East Germany, but it's much more than that - betrayal, regret, sacrifice and absurdity, among other things. The demoralisation procedures of the title are a manual that Zeiger, the central figure, devises to undermine and confuse suspected dissidents. The plot moves between his betrayal of Held, a scientist sent to take part in transportation experiments in the USA, in the past and the fall of the wall. It is very good on the surreality and ultimate pointlessness of the GDR - the temporary abolition of the colour gray leads to comrades "wandering the courtyards in outfits of staggering creative breadth", the manual is regarded as a fictional and lyrical work. Not all of it comes off, but this is a really excellent first novel which deserves to be read widely.