Katastrophe
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By Graham Hurley
avg rating
1 review
The new blockbuster thriller from Graham Hurley set against the final stages of the Second World War.
Confidant of Goebbels. Instrument of Stalin. What’s the worst that could happen?
January 1945. Wherever you look on the map, the Thousand Year Reich is shrinking. Even Goebbels has run out of lies to sweeten the reckoning to come. An Allied victory is inevitable, but who will reap the spoils of war?
Two years ago, Werner Nehmann’s war came to an abrupt end in Stalingrad. With the city in ruins, the remains of General Paulus’ Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets, and Nehmann was taken captive. But now he’s riding on the back of one of Marshal Zhukov’s T-34 tanks, heading home with a message for the man who consigned him to the Stalingrad Cauldron.
With the Red Army about to fall on Berlin, Stalin fears his sometime allies are conspiring to deny him his prize. He needs to speak to Goebbels – and who better to broker the contact than Nehmann, Goebbels’ one-time confidant?
Having swapped the ruins of Stalingrad for the wreckage of Berlin, the influence of Goebbels for the machinations of Stalin, and Gulag rags for a Red Army uniform, Nehmann’s war has taken a turn for the worse. The Germans have a word for it:
Katastrophe.
Katastrophe is part of the SPOILS OF WAR Collection, a thrilling, beguiling blend of fact and fiction born of some of the most tragic, suspenseful, and action-packed events of World War II. From the mind of highly acclaimed thriller author GRAHAM HURLEY, this blockbuster non-chronological collection allows the reader to explore Hurley’s masterful storytelling in any order, with compelling recurring characters whose fragmented lives mirror the war that shattered the globe.
Reviewers on Katastrophe:
‘A taut, detailed and compelling read’ The Sun
‘A penetrating, compelling, and skilfully vivid slice of historical fiction’ LoveReading Expert Review
‘An immaculately researched historical thriller… This series cannot be recommended too highly’ Mike Ripley
‘Inventive and thought provoking’ Crime Time
Reviewers on Graham Hurley:
‘Historical fiction of a high order’ The Times
‘Tense, absorbing and faultlessly plotted’ Sunday Times
‘Beautifully constructed… This is one of Hurley’s finest’ Daily Mail
’Hurley’s capable and understated characterization makes his lead’s story plausible and engaging’ Publishers Weekly
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Macclesfield Library Reading Group
Thank you to @ReadingAgency and @HoZ_Books for providing copies of Katastrophe by Graham Hurley. Here are the thoughts of our members –
• We thought the author writes very well with excellent descriptions and fascinating historical details. The book felt incredibly well-researched but we questioned if perhaps there was too much detail, because the plot got a little lost within all the description. The only other thing we disliked about the style of writing was the depiction of women – with the exception of Ursula Barton, women always seemed to be described only in terms of appearance but the male characters were more fleshed out from the get go
• It was interesting to see the war from a German perspective but we still struggled to empathise with characters such as Schultz and Nehmann, even knowing that they had both suffered terribly. These characters might not have been members of the Nazi party themselves, but they still enabled the regime and both worked directly for incredibly influential Nazis, so we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to root for these men – there was always a disconnect
• Our favourite character was Ursula Barton. We thought that she was the most relatable character and her reaction to the death of her friend in the bombing felt so natural and human. Her death, therefore, was a bit of a shock because we were quite attached to her! But, we did then think that this storyline could be picked up in a later book focusing on Philby and Liddell and Tam’s disillusionment with the services
• We discussed the wisdom of including real people as characters in novels and whether they can ever be accurately portrayed in fiction. This was of particular concern in this book because there were just so many characters based on actual people, but at least they were secondary characters to Moncrieff, Barton, Schultz and Nehmann. However Hurley did manage to skilfully intermingle the likes of Stalin and Himmler into his plot alongside his totally fictional characters
• Books such as this one about WW2 make it so obvious that history continues to repeat itself. Not only that, but the world is still feeling the affects of WW2 in current conflicts because the war influenced geopolitics in such a huge way that it continues to ripple in global decisions happening today. Ultimately, ordinary people suffer while a small group of bigwigs get together and decide the fate of the world – overall a very bleak take away from this book!
