Rostock Connection – a preview


Reim is back, and more desperate than ever before …

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Rostock Connection – part 3 of the Bruno Trilogy

#GDR #Stasi #Spy #Crime

Cover of Rostock Connection

ISBN paperback: 9781913125110
ISBN LARGE PRINT paperback: 9781913125134
ISBN ebook: 9781913125127

He spied for the KGB, now they want him dead

Rumours of a mole in the Stasi’s foreign intelligence wing just won’t go away, and once again Lieutenant Reim is tasked with investigating.

But six months after he first heard reports of a Western agent in the ranks of the Stasi, he’s no closer to finding enough evidence against the officer he believes to be responsible for the leaks.

To find the traitor and close the case, Reim has to go deeper undercover than ever before—but will he survive the final showdown with the agent he’s tracked through East Germany and across the Iron Curtain?

Book 5 of the Reim Series,
part 3 of the Bruno Trilogy

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ISBN paperback: 9781913125110
ISBN LARGE PRINT paperback: 9781913125134

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Operation Oskar – a preview

The sequel to Stasi Vice

For those of you who can’t wait to find out what happens in Operation Oskar, here’s a short preview.

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September 1983

“Where were you between 1600 and 2200 hours on the night of the fifteenth?

My comrades love a good question, maybe that’s why they were asking me again. And again.

And again.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I just answer?

But I’d already answered. I’d given them my answer this morning. And yesterday. And the day before.

And guess what? They were still keen to hear what I had to say.

I knew the procedure, I knew what to expect—I’d been on the other side of that table many times. I’d heard the lectures at the Ministry school in Golm and I’d read the manual. But this time I was in the hot seat. Knees closed tighter than a nun’s, hands pressed under my thighs, palms pushed against the seat. No sleep for two days. Or was it three? Couldn’t really tell whether the hallucin­ations were from alcohol withdrawal or lack of sleep.

Probably both.

So I gave them my answer again: “I was in my office, opening a preliminary file on a potential informant in Potsdam. The gate records will confirm that I spent the whole night at the headquarters of Main Department VI in Treptow.”

The Stasi major sitting behind the desk didn’t react. Didn’t even bother looking up from the sheet of questions in front of him, just read out the next one from his list.

I didn’t need a sheet of paper in front of me, I knew which question was next because he’d already asked me, as had the interrogator before him, and the one before that.

Like I said, they love a good question.

The shifts changed. The faces opposite me changed. But I stayed right where I was, and that list of questions stayed right there on the desk.

Every day or so they let me go back to shiver in my cell, just for a bit of variety. My cramped legs struggled to carry me down the cold corridors, my hands were shackled together and my head was lowered.

I couldn’t see much. The traffic light system was above my line of sight, my vision topped out at the thin wires strung along the walls at shoulder height.

I thought about reaching out, pulling the fine wire before my guard could react. Break the electrical connection and the alarm would go off, more screws would turn up, truncheons ready for action. Surely the pain and the bruises would be better than this monotony?

Just for a bit of variety.

 

They were having a hard time deciding whether my dead Boss was a hero or a traitor and they expected me to help them work it all out.

Everyone else who could help was either dead or in the West. Either way, they were out of reach.

Fair enough, it was going to take them a bit of time to figure it out: all they had was the Boss’s corpse with a big hole in the chest where a bullet had been dug out of it. They didn’t know who had killed him.

But that wasn’t the important bit.

They wanted the why. If they knew why he’d been killed they’d know whether he was a class-hero or a class-traitor.

Once the brass agreed on the why they might declare him a hero—just for the propaganda value—even if they’d decided he was a traitor.

Or it might happen the other way round. Who could say how it might turn out?

And me? I couldn’t care less whether my dead Boss was a hero or a traitor. I only cared what the comrades thought. The interrogation notes would be sent to Berlin Centre, and one day the verdict would come back.

If the bigwigs decided the Boss was one of the bad guys then I was as good as dead.

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Cold Island – a preview


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Cold Island

Britain is divided, and Mara is on the wrong side

Cover of Cold Island

ISBN paperback: 9780993324765
ISBN hardback: 9781913125158
ISBN ebook: 9780993324772

It’s more than twenty-five years since Mara arrived in Britain, yet today she no longer feels safe in the country she thought she knew.
Desperate to prove her right to remain in the country, but trapped between bureaucratic inflexibility and administrative failure, Mara sees no other option than to go underground. There she meets others who have made their home in the UK but are now being forced to lead their lives in the half-shadows of society.
Supported by a secretive group of activists calling themselves the Borises, Mara and her new friends flee across the moors of northern England, hoping to reach relative safety in Scotland—but Immigration Enforcement is never far behind.

This compellingly tender novel explores the personal costs of Brexit

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Stasi Vice – a preview

An abandoned rail track running through a dark pine forest

Cover of Stasi ViceFor those of you who can’t wait to find out what happens in Stasi Vice, here’s a short preview.

(see the preview for book 2 in the Reim Series: Operation Oskar)

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Stasi Vice

September 1983

It was meant to be a simple job. Lean on a few people, get them to shut up. Intimidate neighbours, bribe officials, appeal to the socialist conscience of Party members.

But clearing up after the boss is never a simple job. Not that I’d ever say so in any official way. But this is just between you and me, and I know I can trust you, don’t I?

But what are bosses for if not to create work? The boss in question has a fine life—villa in the Botanik. Every morning he gets picked up in a company car and brought to work. Every morning he leaves his fine family behind, two kids, one of each. Blonde hair and blue eyes, you know the kind. Every morning, they stand at the garden gate with the blonde-haired-blue-eyed Mutti and wave their starched white handkerchiefs. Good-bye Papi, as he goes off to secure the socialist future.

Doesn’t matter how early I arrive, he’ll be behind his desk, checking his watch and flicking specks of nothing off his uniform sleeve.

Prussian bastard.

I hear you, exactly the kind of bloke who’s going to play away from home. And not for BFC Dynamo. Play away-games and sooner or later things will get messy, you can bet your wages on that.

Which is why I was playing cleaning lady for the Boss.

I entered the Konsum department store at half-past nine. That was my first mistake, right there. I was busy congratulating myself on my timing, the queue of pensioners looking for rarities that might have been delivered by mistake had cleared off and the store was fairly empty. Instead of being smug I should have used my nouse and hightailed it back to the capital for a quick look in the registry.

First rule of any operation: check the files.

Normally, before any operational measures begin, a file is opened. Then you make cross-references and end up with more lists, keys, indexes and summaries than are in the Berlin telephone book.

Normally.

Problem was, this wasn’t normal. This was my boss telling me to sort out his mess on the sly, and dalli dalli. If I checked the files back at the Centre my search would be logged, and then all you need is some busybody wondering why a grunt from Main Department VI is looking at the files of nobodies from a sandy town on the edge of Berlin. That would have landed me in the shit, and not just with the Boss.

So I didn’t look through the files. Didn’t check whether anyone on my list was known to the Ministry in any capacity, shape or form. Or any other ministry for that matter. Any Party members with connections in the right places? Any family members or close acquaintances higher up the pecking order than the Boss? Any cross-links, existing files, references, keys or indexes on any of them?

If I’d had time to go through the registry at my own pace and in my own way, I would have spotted the connections immediately. That would have saved me a good few millimetres of shoe leather and a truck-load of hassle.

Enough with moaning into my beer. I was telling you about this little operational measure on the side. There I was, standing on the ground floor of the Konsum in Königs Wusterhausen—to call the three tiny floors of this provincial shop a department store stretched my imagination too far—and demanding an audience with Citizen Dittmann. No need to show them the detective’s disc, they made me for the member of the state organs that I was. I was ushered into a poky storeroom with no natural light.

And there she was, my first operational target. Petite, greying hair tucked under a dark blue paisley headscarf, fingers bent with rheumatism. But her arthritic fingers weren’t stopping her from skimming the consumer goods, taking little cartons of sewing supplies out of the packing cases and putting them in a cardboard box to be handed out to friends later. She was so busy she didn’t even notice me.

“Needle and thread in short supply again?” I enquired, friendly enough. I find it easier to play good cop, at least until the need arises. Then I’m happy to show my true colours as bastard cop.

Dittmann nearly jumped out of her skin. While she made a show of wringing her hands she was busy nudging the box of illicit wares further under the counter.

I flapped the tin disc at her. Just like her colleagues on the shop floor, there was no real need to get the piece of metal out, she already had me pegged. But a little bit of psychological reinforcement goes a long way.

“Can I help?” She was being polite, wondering whether I’d noticed her little game.

“Paragraph 173, section 2 of the criminal code. Hoarding of goods.” I helped her out.

“Is that why you’re here?” She sank into a chair. A handkerchief appeared and she mopped her soft face.

Obviously it wasn’t why I was here, they’d have sent a bull to lift her for that, if they’d bother at all. But I left her hanging—I’d helped her enough already.

I asked to see her Ausweis and in return pulled out a mugshot of the Boss’s pretty lady and held it under Dittmann’s nose. “Know her?”

Dittmann peered at the picture. It was black and white, but you could see the fine featured woman was a blonde, her eyes blue—just the way the Boss liked them. I watched as Dittmann poked around in the pocket of her pinny until she found her glasses. She perched them on the end of her nose then tilted her head so they wouldn’t get in the way of the photograph she was looking at. People do the stupidest things, but I’ve learnt not to rub their noses in it, not when I want something from them.

“Frau Hofmann!” Dittmann seemed pleased to place the face, maybe she thought if she got full marks I’d let her off.

“See her much?”

“Regular customer, always very polite. Saw her just last week-”

“See her outside of work?”

“Oh.” Dittmann slid her glasses up her nose and looked at me. The lens distorted her eyes, making them bulbous and shiny. “Not in any kind of trouble, is she?”

“It is your duty to answer my questions.” The cold stare always does it.

“Walking in the Tiergarten park last week, perhaps it was the week before. With a gentleman-”

“This one?” Another mugshot for her to peer at, this time of the Boss. How could he be so sloppy, taking his moll for a hike round the local beauty spot?

“Quite rude, I greeted them as they went past and if looks could kill-”

“This concerns the interests of society.” I took the photographs back. “Not to mention your own.”

Dittmann took her glasses off and gave me a blank look.

“Citizen Hofmann is of operational interest. Therefore, for political-operational reasons you may not mention to any person that you have seen Citizen Hofmann in the presence of this person, nor that you and I have ever met. Failure to comply would indicate a negative attitude towards our socialist state. Is that clear?”

Dittmann looked unsure, so I gave her another nudge.

“Paragraph 173, section 2,” I said.

I got my notebook out as I left the Konsum and crossed Dittmann off the list. One down, three to go. At this rate I’d have my Boss’s mess sorted by the end of tomorrow. Day after at the latest.

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Writing the Stasi – guest post by Fiona Rintoul

Leipzig Town Centre in the 80s (C) Fiona Rintoul
Leipzig Town Centre in the 80s © Fiona Rintoul, 1986

“Stasi” was the first new vocabulary item I learnt when I arrived at the Karl-Marx-University Leipzig as an exchange student in the 1980s. Short for Staatsicherheit – the hated East German secret service – Stasi was a word you whispered, like the name of a terrible disease. Continue reading “Writing the Stasi – guest post by Fiona Rintoul”

Spectre At The Feast – a preview

 

Part 3 of the East Berlin Series has been released:

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Spectre At The Feast

Cover of Spectre At The Feast

ISBN: 978-0993324741
eISBN: 978-0993324758

East Berlin, Summer 1994
In the wake of a divisive referendum, the people of the GDR are struggling to find common ground.
Concerned that populist leader, Klaus Kaminsky, is poised to take power in East Germany, Karo and Martin come together again to defend the grassroots democracy they are helping to build.
But as Kaminsky holds rallies across the country, the mood of the people of the GDR begins to change. Can the delicate balance of round tables and workers’ councils survive, or will the country be dragged back into the authoritarian rule of the past?

“The Soldiers’ Council of the Border Regiment 33 had a
meeting this morning. We’re on strike.”
“You call this being on strike?”
“Yeah, fun isn’t it?”

Book 3 of the East Berlin Series

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Map for Book 2 of the East Berlin Series, Thoughts Are Free

GDR made map of Berlin - West Berlin is just a blank

It’s always an exciting moment when my publisher sends me the maps for my next book. I like maps, and I’m pleased that my publishers are prepared to put the effort into making decent maps for the books I write.

For a small publisher like Wolf Press the costs of a professional cartographer and licences for commercial maps would be prohibitive – there just isn’t very much money in publishing any more. So thank goodness for Open Street Maps! Continue reading “Map for Book 2 of the East Berlin Series, Thoughts Are Free”