Luke McCallin

As summer parches the despoiled earth of northwestern France in 1918, young Lieutenant Gregor Reinhardt, Seventeenth Prussian Fusiliers, has fought both east and west. A blooded warrior who commands a company of men older than himself, he senses the cause is lost but fights hard because that’s what he must do, and because he’s loyal to his comrades.

Consequently, when a booby-trap explodes at a divisional staff meeting behind the lines, killing several senior officers, and a soldier he show more recommended for a battlefield commission is blamed for the deaths and quickly executed, Reinhardt can’t sit with this. Receiving tacit permission to investigate from a sympathetic colonel — not that he would have twiddled his thumbs otherwise — the nineteen-year-old lieutenant begins to ask questions.

No sooner has he done so than he falls into a rabbit hole of conspiracy and murder, with blood having blood to eliminate witnesses; sometimes, he’s the target. After all, he served on the Eastern Front, where he came in contact with Russian soldiers infected by defeatist, socialist ideals, and the protégé executed for the booby-trap explosion was known to be insubordinate, radical, and a malcontent. So Reinhardt’s the perfect fall guy.

Participants in the conspiracy, whose goal and breadth he can’t penetrate at first, appear to include very senior commanders, deserters, Bolsheviks, doctors treating shell-shocked soldiers, dissenters, and, pervading all, the frustration and anger at a war that continues to chew up and spit out lives, though there can be no hope of German victory. The narrative therefore makes an unusual coming-of-age story of a young man trying to live morally where few, if any, morals exist. You may also read the novel as a labyrinthine thriller or mystery, with qualities of each, which will keep you guessing until the last page. But from whatever standpoint you approach it, From a Dark Horizon is first-rate First World War fiction.

Start with Reinhardt, who, despite his experience and responsibility, is still just an adolescent, truculent and earnest, occasionally pompous when he spouts principles, a character whose actions don’t always match his good intentions. Human, in other words. Most others around him have their facets too; I particularly like his sergeant, fiercely loyal but also brutally honest, and a mercurial captain who seems wildly unpredictable and who Reinhardt thinks is on his side but can’t be sure.

McCallin also displays an impressive command of the battlefield, rest area, home front, chain of command, you name it. No detail escapes his eye, and everything feels authentic, something rare in First World War novels. The author, who follows the history faithfully, re-creates the mood of both army and home front. He conveys the weariness for sacrifice that seems to have no purpose, the grumblings of revolution, and the political maneuvering to cast blame once the war finally ends. I admire this panorama very much, both for its historical grasp and adept fictional portrayal.

I like the thriller/mystery aspect as well, though several twists toward the end feel rather convenient, with fortuitous arrivals of powerful characters. One such character in particular, who seems to slide in and out of his ability to process what’s happening around him, is too helpful to the story as well. Even so, reversals come frequently, for whenever Reinhardt discovers the next link in the chain of conspiracy, that person typically winds up dead.

Enough bodies fall (more from foul play than combat) to staff a platoon, and the Byzantine links among them necessitate frequent recapitulations, usually in the form of Reinhardt explaining what he’s learned, and how. From a Dark Horizon, though its pages turn rapidly, can be talky at times.

This volume marks the last in the wartime series about Reinhardt’s exploits. But in his afterword, McCallin promises that his hero will have further adventures in the 1920s. I’m ready. show less

Despite being the third volume in a series (of which I promptly purchased the first two), the novel reads like a stand alone. Set with marvellous historical reconstruction in ravaged Berlin at the immediate end of World War II, it is the narrative of an investigation, but also of a power struggle, revenge and disillusionment. The protagonist, Gregor Reinhardt, is a veteran of both world wars, who despite having fought for his country never embraced Nazi ideology, and is, above all, a moral show more man. That is why many hate him, some secretly admire him and all try more or less to use him. A really good novel, decidedly well-written, with a psychological introspection rarely found in works of this type, in which the characters always tend to be lacking in chiaroscuro. Moreover, as I live in Berlin, I was pleased to follow Gregor's steps as if I were a bird resting on his shoulder. show less

Gregor Reinhardt is a character who enters the heart. I say this because having started reading his adventures from the bottom (I love authors whose books, while belonging to a series, can be read as standalone), I felt the need to start again from the beginning. From the time when the wounded and decorated soldier of the First World War, who later becomes a police officer with a great instinct, becomes a soldier again in order not to continue working in a police force strongly ideologised show more by Nazism. His profession, however, pursues him all the way to tormented Yugoslavia, in the form of a double murder: a beautiful Croatian journalist, sensual and politicised, and a German intelligence officer. A sensitive investigation, which everyone would like to close as soon as possible by blaming the partisans, and which is opposed on all sides, with unprecedented brutality. Despite this, Reinhardt pursues the truth all the way to the battlefield, and in the process regains his moral compass and purpose.
There are a few lags, and a couple of slips in the construction of some characters, including the female victim. Apart from that, a magnificent novel, with impeccable historical reconstruction. show less

The Man From Berlin – Great Crime thriller

The Man from Berlin by Luke McCallin is an amazing crime thriller and even better as it is a first novel. There is a lot of huff n puff calling this a literary thriller, is that just to make the anal retentive literary types like the book too. This is a great thriller and better than any of the crap those literary types could ever produce.

Captain Gregor Reinhardt is in the Abwehr a former detective in the Berlin Police and decorated war veteran, show more before being shunted around due to not being a Nazi Party member. He is trying to keep his head down and let the war pass him by. It is 1943 and he Reinhardt is trying to be an intelligence officer in Sarajevo in the allied Bosnia, a land he recognises as brutal and unforgiving.

When the murder of socialite film maker and German propaganda film maker the beautiful Marija Vukic and Abwehr Lieutenant Stefan Hendel, a murder that should be investigated by the Military Police or local police has been assigned to Reinhardt. Little does he know how much he will have to take on while investigating the murder as Reinhardt wants to do everything by the book gather the evidence and then find the killer charge him and hand him over to the authorities for them to deal with.

Reinhardt finds that even though the investigation should be straight forward not only is he competing against the corrupt nature of the local Sarajevo Police he has to deal with a corrupt Nazi from his past in Major Becker of the Military Police. All seem to be throwing more spanners in the works than seems necessary the more the investigation goes on the more he realises his own life is in danger.

As he gets closer to the truth the closer to death Reinhardt becomes he can see this and does not hide from it. Reinhardt is too honest to be blown off course whether it be the Army, SS, Military Police or Partisans. It literally does become a fight to the death who dares wins and even that is not that clear at the end.

A fantastic thriller based in the war with all the internal politics that caused so much fear during the war. This is a well researched thriller in the background, in the knowledge of wartime Sarajevo which brings realism to a classic thriller. For a first book this is an excellent example of the thriller genre written like a hard bitten master of thrillers. I do hope this is the first of many, so well written the prose is dripping in imagery an accomplished wordsmith! show less