Anyone else feeling a little bit chilly today, as though, erm, winter is rife?
Today I am hosting David Young and ‘Stasi Winter’ as part of the blog tour. Many thanks to Tracy Fenton and Zaffre Books for the tour invite and ARC.
In 1978 East Germany, nothing is at it seems. The state’s power is absolute, history is re-written, and the ‘truth’ is whatever the Stasi say it is.
So when a woman’s murder is officially labelled ‘accidental death’, Major Karin Müller of the People’s Police is faced with a dilemma. To solve the crime, she must disregard the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life – and the lives of her young family – in danger.
As the worst winter in living memory holds Germany in its freeze, Müller must untangle a web of state secrets and make a choice: between truth and lies, justice and injustice, and, ultimately, life and death.
What does TWG think?
If you’re new to David Young’s novels, ‘Stasi Winter’ is book 5 in the Karin Muller series, with each book reading well on their own. Just be mindful that you may not have the full backstory of character relationships if you do read the books out of order.
‘Stasi Winter’ is written well. There is no doubt about that at all. It’s very clear that the author has researched his locations and finer details to ensure authenticity throughout, and I really did appreciate it. For me, however, I found the shell of the story to be a bit confusing and quite slow at times. I do realise that books of this genre require a slow build up to create more tension, and whilst the tension was definitely there, I would have liked the pace to speed up a bit more, rather than the characters to-ing and fro-ing as often as they did.
Despite the slow pace, I still found myself enjoying historical crime elements to the book, and I ended up being quite addicted to the ‘will they wont they?’ parts. It just goes to show that, under pressure, logistics go out of the window and peoples choices can often appear quite selfish.
What I love about this series is the fact that I can dip in and out of the books and still feel as though I’m part of the overall vibe when I come back to the stories at a later date.
Overall, an intriguing, well thought out novel that made Scottish weather seem like Summer!
The Writing Garnet 