Stasiland by Rolf Richardson
Genre: Crime/Political thriller
Publisher: Matador/ Troubadour
Publication date: March 11, 2019
Blurb:
(from Goodreads)
After a messy divorce, Ed Blake is trying to forget the past by spending the summer driving around Europe in his silver Porsche. He gets no further than a small town on the river Elbe when he is arrested for a crime he did not commit.
Although in what is now a united Germany, this is the former Communist East, once ruled by the feared secret police, the Stasi. This is Stasiland. The past has not gone away, Germany’s political tectonic plates are shifting, maybe heading for the sort of chaos last seen in the 1930s. Ed finds himself pulled into a whirlpool of violence as right-wing extremism starts to shake the foundations of Europe.
This is a novel about here and now. What happened to Ed Blake could happen to you.
About the Author:
He then became a roaming photographer, visiting around 110 countries, with over 15,000 photos now sold. He has worked his passage on cruise ships by giving lectures. Taken 3 months to drive round Australia.
A few years ago he set out to put his experiences to further use by writing a series of ‘Easy Read’ books: thrillers with a dash of history, romance and humour.” (From Author’s Amazon page)
My thoughts
I liked Ed from the very beginning. He has a great voice: wry, direct, and unself-conscious. Though I didn’t always understand or agree with the choices he made, he was a great companion for this journey into Stasiland.
An inside look at politics
For me, the highlight of the book was the inside look at politics in Eastern Europe. These people, the countries, and even the book are haunted by the not-quite-dead ghosts of totalitarian governments. I remember the Berlin Wall coming down and the unification of the two Germanys. However, I didn’t realize how difficult it was for the people to unify their minds and not only their lands. Some in the book look back at life under communism with nostalgia. At least everyone had a job, one tells Ed, and there was less materialism.
The positives of Communism
Scenes like this show the plus side of what almost all Westerners (at least those growing up in the Cold War era) view as a negative system. Ed is no exception. Fortunately, Richardson provides a translator of sorts. The investigator working this murder case is an outsider who’s delved into the inner workings of the Communist views. So he can act as an interpreter for Ed and us.
The message and the messenger
There’s plenty of astute observations about politics. For example, at one point, a woman describes a murder victim, a man who’d started an extreme right political party. She tells Ed, the victim
“had a way with him that was . . . appealing. In politics, the messenger is often more important than the message.” (chapter 15).
Relevant, engaging, & interesting
While the book didn’t seem to move at a standard thriller pace, Ed’s engaging narrative voice made this a fun, quick read. I never felt that he was in great danger. But I did feel that other characters were, including some he (and I) had grown fond of. There’s even a middle-age romance subplot. I recommend it for anyone interested in the rise of extremism in Eastern Europe. It’s relevant to our times.
Blog tour picture:
