Books set in Berlin from Next Chapter [March 2023]
Berlin, the capital city of Germany, is a vibrant and dynamic metropolis that is steeped in history and culture. The city has a population of over 3.5 million people and is known for its unique blend of old-world charm and modern amenities. Berlin is home to some of the world's most famous landmarks, including the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag building.
Despite its tumultuous history, Berlin has emerged as one of Europe's most popular destinations for tourists and locals alike. The city is renowned for its vibrant nightlife, world-class museums, and art galleries. Visitors can enjoy an eclectic mix of international cuisine, from traditional German dishes to modern fusion cuisine.
Berlin is also a hub of innovation and creativity, attracting entrepreneurs and artists from all over the world. The city has a thriving startup scene and is home to some of the most influential tech companies in Europe. Berlin's rich cultural heritage, vibrant social scene, and entrepreneurial spirit make it a must-visit destination for anyone looking to experience the best that Germany has to offer.
Here, you’ll find three of our best books set in Berlin, as of 03/2023. All books on this page are available in eBook, paperback and hardcover formats, and some in audio as well.
Whether it’s thriller, mystery or literary fiction, we believe you’ll enjoy one of the books on this page - and if you do, please don’t forget to leave the author a review :) Don’t agree with our choices? Please leave a comment and let us know your favorite novels in the genre!
Books featured on this page
Berlin Reload (The Redaction Chronicles Book 4) by James Quinn
What Happened In Vienna, Jack? (Lies And Consequences Book 1) by Daniel Kemp
Berlin Reload (The Redaction Chronicles Book 4) by James Quinn
Book excerpt
West Berlin (British Sector) – 1958
The four men were seated around the table, a map and a mug of coffee in front of each of them. They had all been in Berlin for less than a day and this was their first chance to learn about each other and what they would be doing in the spy capital of Europe.
The overall Commander and their ‘boss’ was Stephen Masterman, retired Colonel of British Special Forces, who had been recruited into SIS after having a ‘good war’, mainly in Europe, where he had run partisan networks, conducted sabotage operations and carried out the odd bit of throat slitting on the side. It was Masterman who was standing, leading the briefing.
“Just so that you know, the moment that you stepped foot on German soil you officially became a civilian. You are no longer in the military. SIS runs, owns and pays us. So don’t get caught! We are officially, unofficial!” said Masterman. He was dressed in his habitual polo neck, jacket and dark slacks and was adopting his usual tone of a teacher instructing his favourite pupils.
To the local SIS Station they were known as the Covert Operations Group, and they were there to run deniable operations of whatever the SIS Head of Station needed; kidnapping, infiltration/exfiltration, cross-border work, bit of rough stuff and maybe more. They operated as a solo entity, answered only to Masterman and informally they were known as the Gutterfighters. The name suited them because that was where they would operate; in the darkness, on the street with the gutter rats, fighting tooth and nail by using dirty tactics to win.
“So let’s give you the current state of play about Berlin, shall we? Although our base is here in the British sector, we will be working undercover wherever we have to – American, French sectors – but our main target is the Soviets. That’s where the big money is!” he continued.
For months, the Americans and the Soviets had been treating Berlin as their own private espionage Wild West, where shootings, assassinations and kidnappings were considered a daily occurrence and the norm. SIS felt that they were being left out of the fun and had created a standalone, deniable unit to address the balance.
“And of course espionage,” added Masterman. “We will help SIS run some of their more risky sources as time goes by.”
Their base was a converted garage/workshop with offices above that was located on Fischerstrasse, in the Spandau borough of the British and American Sectors. Its entrance was located down a back alleyway that was seedy and dark enough to quickly discourage people from taking an unhealthy interest in the place. The workshop had an exterior gate that was heavily secured and was surrounded by a ten foot high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Once inside the yard, a metal staircase took you up to the first floor office which housed the operations room, sleeping quarters and Masterman’s office area. Downstairs in the workshop was where they kept the vehicles that they would modify for using on operations; surveillance, crossing the border and to generally move about the city covertly. The team would be fitting out and beefing up the security on the base themselves, doing the work rather than bringing in outside contractors from the main SIS Station, deciding that it was more secure to be autonomous and independent. It was discreet, secure, and unobtrusive; it was perfect for a covert operations team to work from.
“I’ve recruited you all personally because I think that you can bring something different to the table than the usual SIS chaps. You are all intelligence operations trained, have bloody decent German and Russian, know how to stay hidden and covert, and aren’t afraid of getting your hands mucky when you have to… and that’s oil or blood I’m talking about,” said Masterman, with a wink. It got him a smile; but deep down they knew there was a deadly serious point behind it all.
“So let’s have a bit of a get-to-know-you pow-wow, shall we?” said Masterman.
Jack Grant looked around the room. Five of them; all tough-looking, all experienced in various covert capacities, but to the unwary they would have passed for factory workers, builders, black marketeers and mechanics. It was only the steely looks in their eyes and the almost imperceptible shape of 9mm pistols in covert holsters at their belts that gave them away.
For Those Who Dare by John Anthony Miller
Book excerpt
Tony Marino had spent almost two months in Germany gathering information for his next book. Commissioned by Green Mansion Publishing for their History of Nations series, he had already written The History of France and The History of Belgium. Now he was writing The History of Germany. He had planned to leave Berlin a week earlier to visit his home in the States but decided not to because he was behind schedule.
Almost thirty-five, he bore a striking resemblance to Elvis Presley, although his eyes and complexion were a bit darker. He was raised in Philadelphia, home to many Italian immigrants during the first half of the twentieth century, by a single mother who still spoke broken English. Fluent in Italian, French and German, he did a stint in the U.S. Army as a translator and then went to college on the G.I Bill. A natural talent for writing and an interest in history led to the publication of several magazine articles before he landed his current assignment with Green Mansion.
He stood in front of his coffee pot, yawning as he waited for it to brew. Having just crawled out of bed, he turned on the radio to catch the baseball scores from the American military news network. From the time he first played stick ball in the streets of South Philly, he had been addicted to baseball, almost obsessed. And the Philadelphia Phillies were his team. But it was tough to be a loyal fan; the Phillies were horrible, the worst team in baseball. The evening before they had lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-0, managing only five hits, and they had lost the day before that and the day before that. Actually, they had lost fourteen games in a row. But the announcer barely mentioned the Phillies. The entire country was focused on the Yankees. Roger Maris hit his 43rd home run, still on track to beat the Babe’s record for most home runs in a season. Fans were mixed, some pulling for Maris, hoping a modern star could take the record, others were loyal to the Babe.
Marino was distracted by noises outside his third-floor apartment, located in the French section of West Berlin, and he looked outside to find an army of workman and soldiers destroying the tranquility of a Sunday morning. His apartment building bordered a cemetery defined by a three-foot stone wall, and soldiers were strung across the edge of the graveyard, standing a few feet apart. Workers were pounding wooden poles into the ground, while others strung barbed wire between the posts. He could see their faces as they built the barrier, the soldiers directing them, some smoking cigarettes. It seemed surreal.
It was a large cemetery, the section along the border shaped like the bottom of the letter L, the Church of Reconciliation and a row of old townhouses at the edge of the street beyond. The rest of the cemetery, the side of the letter L, extended several blocks back into East Berlin. Strelitzer Strasse was the closest street intersecting East and West, and Marino saw concrete barriers blocking the road, soldiers spaced evenly around them. The border had been open the day before, easy to travel in either direction. But now, for some reason, that luxury no longer existed. He wondered if the entire border with East Berlin was being walled in.
Even though the barrier was hastily constructed, by early morning it ran in both directions for much of the urban landscape. The barbed wire was almost four feet high, crossing the western edge of the cemetery and leaving a few rows of crooked tombstones, eroded by time, as curious residents of West Berlin. The remainder of the graveyard, in the Mitte section of East Berlin, lay quiet, tranquil, shaded by trees, as if observing the travesty but unable to protest. The Church of Reconciliation was across from Marino’s apartment building, a Gothic revival design dominated by a lofty spire that seemed to touch the clouds. The balance of the brick building was supported by a series of graceful arches, and it still stood proud and defiant in a nation that trampled the religious freedom the building represented. Fifty feet from the church, still bordering the road, was a row of nineteenth century townhouses, the cemetery sprawling behind them and then stretching several blocks south and east.
The city of East Berlin bordered half of West Berlin, but East German suburbs and countryside sprawled around the remainder, forming an island in an enemy sea. Marino wondered if the wall was being built on all borders, closing in West Berlin, trying to choke it, or force some sort of submission from the Allied nations in the West. It seemed the Communists always used West Berlin as a pawn in a global chess match. And then, after realizing how vulnerable the city was, a million thoughts raced through his mind. Could he get out? And if he could, would he be able to get back in? How would residents of West Berlin get food and clothes and other supplies? They had electricity – his clocks and lights were working – but for how long?
What Happened In Vienna, Jack? (Lies And Consequences Book 1) by Daniel Kemp
Book excerpt
“I was a page at the Savoy Hotel when I was fifteen, Patrick. My dad had died the year before and although I was in a grammar school with ambitions of per-haps making it into a university, Mum needed the extra money that I could provide with that job. I was a bit ruthless in those days; it was the tips I was really after. Saw the advert at the bottom of a newspaper I was delivering on my paper round one morning and applied straight away. I had to bunk off school to get there. The only qualifications it said that were needed was you had to be clean and not too tall. I passed on both those counts. I think the man who was in charge was called Snow, but it could have been Scott. Nearly forty years have flown past since I was given that first pair of white gloves. They gave you three pairs a day you know, so none got dirty or grubby. Good little earner, that job! Bit wearing on the old feet, though. Must have walked miles each day through the corridors and reception halls. There were eight of us, I think, delivering messages or going out for cigarettes or flowers for the guests. Gave you a cloak to wear if you had to go outside through the main doors. Great fun I tell you, especially if it was an American guest you were going out for.
They tipped well, but no one tipped like a US celebrity. Had a few in my day. Don’t ask me for their names as most of them I’d never heard of, but Mr Snow, or whatever his name was, said they were really important and to look after them. Added a big wink when he said that. That was enough for me. I do remember one celeb, a young girl, a year or so younger than me who was over here to sing on the stage at the Adelphi. She was with her parents and every morning I was instructed to take breakfast to her room. I was the only one al-lowed to do that. Her mother gave me two tickets to the show, and, don’t faint, a five-pound note! More than a year’s wage. I went with my mum, who was so proud of me knowing this American girl that she told all our street that she was off to the theatre to see Judy Garland. She bought a hat for the occasion from that fiver. My mum would fill a hot bath tub every night for me after that for my sore feet. She and I feasted well on the strength of my tips and the sto-ries I told about who I’d met at Savoy.”
“Was it at the Savoy that you were first approached to work for the secret mob, Jack?”
“Observe and listen, they were the first orders I received, Pat. That’s all we want you to do. So said Mr Stewart Campbell, my first handler in early 1933. He wanted me to pin my ears back for mentions about Germany and the name of Hitler in particular. Then they wanted more. They always did! I was promoted in-house a year later to the reception desk and that’s where Alhambra comes into the equation, although, he wasn’t called that then, of course. Trenchard came a few weeks later. ‘The Strummer’ was Alhambra’s code name between Campbell, Trenchard and me, and I was to handle him carefully, they told me. Taking note of callers, telephone numbers if I could, along with which guests he mostly spoke to or mingled with. Trenchard was a junior at Five then. I called him a runner as he was always in a hurry to get some-where else. He passed on instructions from Campbell and sometime later one of them ordered me to enlist in the Blackshirts of Sir Oswald Mosely. I was on my way to one of the rallies held in the East-End, calling for him to be released from internment, when I came across that man at Whitechapel with the gun. I knocked him out, but my cover was blown in Mosely’s New Party so they assigned me elsewhere. I was sent to a Royal Naval yard to work in order to unearth a Communist spy, but I can’t tell you of that. Mind you, by that time I had every name signed up to Mosley’s way of thinking, some would blow your mind wide open, Pat. What I will say is that I told Campbell about John Cairncross way before his name cropped up with Burgess and the other lot from Cambridge. Dropped Victor Rothschild’s name on his lap as well, but what I said was ignored because, as I said before, I never lived in Guildford and only went to a common old grammar school. I was not one of the chaps. Wrong side of the country for inclusion into their club.”
“Why would they wipe your file clean from 1948 if you didn’t finish with them until ’53? That doesn’t make sense unless you did some really important covert stuff for them and they wanted to hide you.”
There was a wide smile from Jack as he finished picking at his food, neatly placing his knife and fork beside each other and laying them diagonally across his half eaten meal. At first, I thought the smile was because the pasta he’d had and the wine he’d drunk both met with his approval, but there was another reason.
There you go: the best books set in Berlin from Next Chapter in March 2023. We hope you enjoy the stories - and if you do, please leave a comment below, or a review in Goodreads or your favorite store. It would mean a lot to us!
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