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A review by nvblue
Death in Focus by Anne Perry
1.0
I am not a reader of much historical fiction; it largely leaves a bad taste in my mouth. However, my book club picked Death in Focus and I was intrigued. It looked like a decent plot written by a well-known author; however, my meager expectations were dashed into smithereens by the pathetic absurdities of this book. The author seems to have confused intrigue with coincidence, because our main character, Elena, (if she can be called a character, she has about as much development and definition as finely ground flour left scattered over the counter), has the unfortunate luck to accidentally date a foreign spy, she then has the unfortunate luck to become infatuated with an MI6 agent, then she has the unfortunate luck of being framed, etc etc. Additionally, her grandfather and father just happen to have been very high up in the foreign office and MI6, of course, that has minimal bearing on the plot. She just happens to know the diplomat the Berlin office. She just happens to run into an American journalist who happens to know people that she can stay with. I digress.
Can we talk about the historicity of the book? Perry tries to create the ambiance of the interwar years, and the British reluctance to engage negatively with Germany. Her characters and their reasons for wanting to avoid war tend to be horridly flat, boring, repetitive, and non-compelling. With as much extraneous time as the author dedicates to theme of ‘Never Again’ she should have been able to develop a convincing or compelling argument. This did not occur.
This might just be a personal qualm, but the author had the very bad taste to include Winston Churchill has a side character. It was entirely unnecessary and poor in execution. (Do we really think WC would have just grunted in conversation, rather than making use of his verbose powers?)
The book is set in 1933, the year that Hitler came to power, yet we already have talk of Jews being rounded into concentration camps. The Nazis did start the concentration camp program in 1933, but it was limited largely to political opponents and on a very small scale. It wasn’t until several years later, around 1938, that the program really took off. So that is absurd. Additionally, some senior members of Elena’s coincidentally well-connected family are very supportive of homosexuals, and that is simply ahistorical (Insert Alan Turing).
The laughability of the plot becomes more apparent when you realize that the entire purpose of Elena’s journey to Berlin could have been avoided by the use of cipher or diplomatic communique. The book is set in 1933 not 1890, Ian Newton should have known that it was ridiculous that MI6 would contact him that he needed to go to Berlin to inform the diplomat to avoid an assassination, when MI6 could have easily contacted the embassy through established channels. The plot holes are so big, you forget that this book has a plot.
If it wasn’t for the fact that this was a book club pick, I would have set this down by chapter three.
Can we talk about the historicity of the book? Perry tries to create the ambiance of the interwar years, and the British reluctance to engage negatively with Germany. Her characters and their reasons for wanting to avoid war tend to be horridly flat, boring, repetitive, and non-compelling. With as much extraneous time as the author dedicates to theme of ‘Never Again’ she should have been able to develop a convincing or compelling argument. This did not occur.
This might just be a personal qualm, but the author had the very bad taste to include Winston Churchill has a side character. It was entirely unnecessary and poor in execution. (Do we really think WC would have just grunted in conversation, rather than making use of his verbose powers?)
The book is set in 1933, the year that Hitler came to power, yet we already have talk of Jews being rounded into concentration camps. The Nazis did start the concentration camp program in 1933, but it was limited largely to political opponents and on a very small scale. It wasn’t until several years later, around 1938, that the program really took off. So that is absurd. Additionally, some senior members of Elena’s coincidentally well-connected family are very supportive of homosexuals, and that is simply ahistorical (Insert Alan Turing).
The laughability of the plot becomes more apparent when you realize that the entire purpose of Elena’s journey to Berlin could have been avoided by the use of cipher or diplomatic communique. The book is set in 1933 not 1890, Ian Newton should have known that it was ridiculous that MI6 would contact him that he needed to go to Berlin to inform the diplomat to avoid an assassination, when MI6 could have easily contacted the embassy through established channels. The plot holes are so big, you forget that this book has a plot.
If it wasn’t for the fact that this was a book club pick, I would have set this down by chapter three.