Diary of a Dead Man on Leave

Starred review from March 18, 2019
Downing (the John Russell series) has never been better than in this moving and elegiac thriller framed as a diary written by a German calling himself Josef Hofmann. In April 1938, Hofmann returns to his native country on behalf of the Communist International organization. The leaders of the Communist Party want to know whether “there are still enough Communists in Germany brave or foolhardy enough to constitute a significant fifth column inside Hitler’s Reich.” Hofmann, a member of the Comintern’s International Liaison Section, is ridden with guilt over a lengthy list “of those I failed to help because I was too busy helping everyman.” In the town of Hamm, a former stronghold of the country’s Communist Party, Hofmann seeks to locate any survivors among 19 party members who worked there when the Nazis seized power and gauge their current loyalties while keeping his own hidden. Meanwhile, he becomes emotionally involved with the family in whose boarding house he’s staying, an entanglement that may compromise his assignment. Le Carré fans will be pleased. Agent: Charlie Viney, Viney Agency.

Starred review from April 15, 2019
It is April 1938, and war is looming in Europe. A man calling himself Josef Hoffmann, who is a spy for the Soviet Comintern, has taken up residence in the north German town of Hamm. His assignment is to foment resistance among workers sympathetic to communism. No easy task, given the lurking presence of the gestapo, but Josef has another problem: his commitment to the Soviet cause is wavering, not out of any ideological misgivings but because he has become involved in the family at whose house he is boarding, particularly young Walter, who is fatherless and desperately needs a mentor. Josef knows his mission is not to become a surrogate father, but, on the other hand, he thinks, I don't want [Walter's] name added to the lengthening list of those I have failed to help because I was too busy helping everyman. We learn about Josef's situation through the personal journal he kept for the eight months he was in Hamm, and the voice that emerges is one of a man struggling with the enduring issue that surfaces and resurfaces throughout espionage fiction, from Graham Greene to John le Carr� and Alan Furst: loyalty to country versus loyalty to the individual. As the Nazi yoke threatens to tighten around Walter and his family, Josef finds himself forced to admit that at this particular moment in time, Walter's need is greater than Comrade Stalin's. This is a quiet, largely introspective spy novel, very different in mood from Downing's adventure-fueled Jack McColl novels, but it packs an equal if not greater emotional wallop.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2018

In 1938, Walter Gersdorff, the young son of a widow who owns a boarding house in Hamm, Germany, looks up to new tenant Josef Hofmann, who says he has returned home from Argentina. A half-century later, Walter discovers a diary revealing that Hofmann was in fact a spy sent by Moscow to rally the remains of the German Communist Party as a means of countering Hitler. From the best-selling author of the Jack McColl novels.

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