V2

I always look forward to a new Robert Harris as you can be fairly sure what you will get: well researched history, some interesting characters - often from opposing sides - that have their own involvement that intersects with and influences the events, and a page turning story. His latest, V2, (Faber & Faber) is no exception. Towards the end of the war, Nazi Germany is facing defeat and ramps up its remarkable technical prowess in rocket development to bomb London from a distance with the frightening V2 that travels three times the speed of sound and takes 5 minutes from launch to deliver its 1 ton of high explosives warhead. British female spies with mathematical genius are hired to detect where the launch bases are located and sent to show more occupied territory to zero in. A return to his gripping best after the slightly disappointing A Second Sleep. show less

After having been hit by a German V2 and her affair with a high rank staff member of the ministry almost exposed, Kay Caton-Walsh, officer in the WAAF, asks to be transferred to directly contribute to the fight against the new super weapon of the enemy. Her wish is granted and so she finds herself with dozen of women in Mechelen, Belgium, where they are trained to calculate the origin of the rockets. These are launched from the Netherlands under the surveillance of Dr Rudi Graf who once dreamt of sending rockets into space and was fascinated by his and his friend Wernher von Braun’s advances in science. But since the Nazis have taken over their skills and inventions, he not only feels increasingly uncomfortable but serious questions show more what he has done.

Altogether, the V2 killed more than 4,000 people, wounded more than 10,000 in London and Antwerp and destroyed thousands of houses in the British capital. Robert Harris has again chosen a historical topic for his novel which outlines the human character in a complicated world. One might expect the Second World War and the Nazi regime to become finally a bit boring, Harris, however, just as in other books before, turns it into a suspenseful story with interesting characters entangled in the contradictions of their time.

The author addresses several core questions while the novel is fast paced and gripping from the start. The German engineer who never intended his creations to be used to kill people but was fascinated by space travel and what by diligence and an inventive talent could be created. Seeing what has become of his dream, he has to make a lonely decision and to come to terms with his role in the war.

On the other hand, Kay is full of patriotism and ready to risk a lot to participate in the fight against the evil, terrorising missile. Quite astonishingly, it is a group of women who do the complicated calculations when mathematics were considered the supreme discipline of men. Yet, their competences do not hinder their male colleague from looking down on them. She is also the one in contact with the local population who is torn between the fronts and after years of occupation not sure whom to trust anymore.

Even though the whole plot is centred around the missile, it is the human aspects which render it interesting and thought provoking. Just as in his other novels, a brilliant combination of fact and fiction which is a terrific read and informative, too. show less

Robert Harris is back. Having made his reputation with Second World War thrillers such as Enigma and Fatherland, Harris is on familiar territory here and knows how to tell a good story. I read the book in two days. It’s actually two stories in parallel. One features a young woman working for the British, trying to locate the elusive launchpads for the V2 rockets that were causing deaths and damage in London in late 1944. The other story is about one of the German engineers who helped create the V2 but has grown disenchanted. The three main problems with the book — no spoilers here — are these: What the German engineer reveals about the British plan to locate the launchpads is actually not a big surprise, and one wonders why no one show more on the Allied side thought of it. The ‘good German’ role is itself becoming a tired trop in fiction, as it surely is here, though at least we’re shown someone who notices the tens of thousands of slave labourers employed to make the V2 rockets but shows almost no sympathy for them. And finally, the very last page of the book — really? I don’t buy it. show less

Robert Harris is a master at weaving together exciting details into first rate historical fiction. In this novel, the theme is the V2 campaign the Germans launched against London in the closing months of World War II. The book is constructed around parallel stories: that of a German scientist and engineer who is helping launch the missiles and that of a British intelligence analyst who is trying to pinpoint the location of the launch pads.

While the story is exciting and the book is a page turner, Harris doesn't turn away from the human cost of the V2 campaign. He captures the horror of a V2 strike in Britain while also tallying up the cost of the program to Germany: 20,000 dead slave laborers and many lives ruined by the Gestapo and show more the SS in the name of security. show less

Another brilliant book from this guy. A fictional (and lightweight) account of the development of the V2 rocket that terrorised London and gave birth to the American and Russian space programs. Highlighting the chameleon like manipulator, Wernher Van Braun, this book is based around one of his colleagues and his moral and ethical dilemmas faced during the development of this technology.

I also thought it was a bit of a romanticised view as well, the protagonists heartfelt response at the fate of the Jews seemed somewhat hollow to me. It may have been more authentic if the protagonist had espoused the genocidal views that fuelled the Nazi regime instead of the crocodile tears shown here. I may be being a bit harsh but I feel the book show more deserves that. I also thought that for the protagonist to have had no empathy for the pligght ofn others may have also been more authentic.

Apart from my carping I enjoyed the read as I have done with all his other books.

If you have ever read of the Bernie Gunther detective novels that are set in this same era and regime, one of the things I liked about his books was that he often included and appendix on the fates of tne historical characters included in the story.

This book could have also used somethiung similar that would highlight the "santisation" of the rocket team after they went to the USA. I have read elsewhere of Van Braun's "harrowing escape" after the fall of the Nazi regime, but this book portrays that (more reliably) as the calculated and manipulated event that Van Braun executed to get himself not only to the USA but away from the inevitable waar crime trials he would have faced in the Allies occupied Germany.

Finally, if you enjoyed this book but want something more meaty to chew then you must read Gravity's Rainbow because that book makes this book look like the cartoon that it is. show less

Robert Harris is one of my favourite contemporary authors, but I found this latest novel of his a bit disappointing by his usual high standards. The story focuses of course around the infamous V2 rockets shot by the Nazis over London and south east England in the last few months of the second world war. The principal (fictional) characters are a British WAAF Kay Caton-Walsh, who is assigned to a group based in newly liberated Belgium in November 1944 where they are calculating the trajectories of newly launched V2s to ascertain their launch sites so they can be bombed, and Dr Rudi Graf, a disillusioned German engineer working on the V2s; the novel is based around the unseen rivalry between these two's efforts, though they don't meet show more each other until after the war when Graf and his superior the historical Werner von Braun are en route to a new life in America via London. Despite this interesting backdrop and strong narrative drive, the novel for me somehow failed to take off (pun unintentional) until the last few chapters and was rather short, with perhaps slightly too much technical details of rocket construction for my taste. show less

Robert Harris is among my favorite authors. This book however was something of a disappointment. Other than being aware that V2 rockets showed up late in WWII, I knew next to nothing about them. This book fixed that admirably. The story is told from both the German and the UK side and covers a very short span of time. The details of operations are the plus side of the book and Harris weaves them into the story with the skill I have found in his other books. The downside for me was the characters here and feeling that Nevil Shute could have written them much better in this setting.

Not quite a dud, but it was a disappointment from Robert Harris, partly because I have high expectations with his works. There are two main characters, one a show more German engineer who is written quite sympathetically and the other is a British WAAF whose story I did not care for. The history of the German rocket program that began quite early long before Nazi's with Werner von Braun dreaming of being the first man on the moon that is threaded through this story was quite interesting to me. show less