December 1, 2021
Anne Simpson's husband has disappeared. A translator in West Berlin in 1989 (the Wall still stands, but its foundation is shaky), Simpson married Stephen on the rebound from a divorce; all seemed well until recently, when Stephen's absences begin to raise questions. Does a piano tuner really need to travel so frequently to both sides of the Iron Curtain? Some of the answers appear when a CIA agent, Cooper, arrives at Anne's doorstep, telling her that Stephen was an East German spy and is most likely dead. Not only was Stephen a spy, but his marriage--at least the one to Anne--was a sham, arranged by an East German spymaster called The Matchmaker, who identifies vulnerable women living in West Berlin and arranges for them to meet his agents (called ""Romeos""). If the Romeo and his duped Juliet become a couple, the agent has a built-in cover for his clandestine life. Distrusting all the spies, German and American, who want to use her to trap the Matchmaker, Anne sets out to find her own kind of justice. With the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall echoing Anne's personal metamorphosis, Vidich adds a welcome feminist twist to the familiar espionage theme of human lives trapped in the vice of competing and equally ruthless governments. From An Honorable Man (2016) through The Mercenary (2021), Vidich has established his position in the forefront of contemporary espionage novelists.
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December 6, 2021
The opening of this forgettable spy novel from Vidich (The Mercenary) sets the heavy-handed tone: “Peril came early to the apartment on Bethaniendamm, overtaking the changes that were sweeping through the streets and alleys of a divided Cold War Berlin.” It’s 1989, and American Anne Simpson works as an interpreter at the Joint Allied Refugee Operations Center in West Berlin, debriefing refugees from Eastern Europe. She’s happily married to German piano tuner Stefan Koehler. Then a consular officer informs her Stefan is missing, his wallet found next to a canal. Simpson believed her husband had been in Vienna and Prague tuning orchestra pianos. Her alarm grows when she finds out West German intelligence suspects Stefan is working with the so-called Matchmaker, the head of East German counterintelligence, to provide confidential details about NATO deployments. As Anne tries to ascertain her spouse’s fate and the truth of the allegations against him, she learns secrets that change her view of the man she loves. The plot moves along predictable lines, and none of the characters makes much of an impression. Vidich has done better. Agent: Will Roberts, Gernert Company.