Book Review

Orders from Berlin by Simon Tolkein

The year is 1940 and the war in Europe is escalating, Germany has annexed France and Hitler is now focussing his attention on Britain and its leader, Winston Churchill. By removing the Prime Minister, Hitler believes Germany will win the war.

Head of the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence unit of the SS, develops a plan to thwart the allies, and his target is Great Britain and her stalwart Prime Minister.

Orders from Berlin is a conspiracy/thriller set in the Second World War. The story starts slow and introduces multiple characters, each with their own sub-plots. It begins with the head of the SD, Reinhard Heydrich who watches the interaction between Hitler, his generals and admirals as they plan to invade Great Britain. He garners an audience with Hitler and outlines a plot to remove Britain from the war.

An elderly man is killed, he had been to the MI6 division seeking Alec Thorn, an operative within the secret service. Detective Trave and his boss, Inspector Quaid are called out to inspect the death. Quaid dismisses it as an opportunistic attack and theft that went wrong and closes the case, however Trave believes it isn’t that simple. He begins his own investigation and learns the old man was once the Head of the MI6 and ties to a bigger mystery. Thorn also suspicious at the death of his mentor and friend, and tries to tell the new head of MI6 that a threat is closer to home than that of Nazi bombers destroying London, but he is ignored.

The story has many twists and various conspiracy leads, the momentum developing as each character unwinds the tangled knots in stages to finally reveal the truth of the plot. Evidence of research comes through with attention to detail to clothing, the setting, and events of the war.

Orders from Berlin is a well-constructed thriller, and people who enjoy reading contemporary historical stories, will become invested and engaged in the conspiracy to kill the one person who is causing Hitler and Germany major headaches.

Thank you for your continued support and as always, I look forward to your comments and will respond.

Historical fiction novelist and a secondary teacher, Luciana Cavallaro, burnt out but not done… yet.

Click here and join the inner circle