When I got this review copy I knew it was the latest in a series. While most crime fiction series make the odd, fleeting vague reference to past novels they often work as stand-alone reads as well. This doesn't - I lost count of the references to past cases, shared histories, going over details that have obviously been covered in past books and it really holds up the pace of this book - gosh it plodded.
I found the dialogue quite clunky - it didn't seem to flow with any sense of the natural cadence of conversation (and yes I know there'd be wariness and a stilted formality at the time between juniors and superior Stasi officers but this was even in conversations between peers, and especially younger characters.) This really jarred with me as well as certain passages - in one scene the lead uses a phone in a hotel - and then we get a 'of course this is unusual for the time but possible in a hotel used by the State' as if the author is trying to answer any criticism that might crop up about details in the book that aren't true to period/regime as he goes along.
Maybe fans will love it, but as a newcomer to the series it did nothing for me as either a stand-alone or to encourage going back and reading other books in the series.
I found the dialogue quite clunky - it didn't seem to flow with any sense of the natural cadence of conversation (and yes I know there'd be wariness and a stilted formality at the time between juniors and superior Stasi officers but this was even in conversations between peers, and especially younger characters.) This really jarred with me as well as certain passages - in one scene the lead uses a phone in a hotel - and then we get a 'of course this is unusual for the time but possible in a hotel used by the State' as if the author is trying to answer any criticism that might crop up about details in the book that aren't true to period/regime as he goes along.
Maybe fans will love it, but as a newcomer to the series it did nothing for me as either a stand-alone or to encourage going back and reading other books in the series.