Spandau Complication

Review by Moon Mullins, Editor at Large- ARGunners.com

https://www.casematepublishers.com/the-spandau-complication.html

Another great book by Bob Orkand set in the divided city of Cold War Berlin! This seems to be a very hot topic over the last few years in the literary world and for good cause.

A work of fiction its an action novel but provides a detailed insight and innerworking of spy versus spy on the city of Berlin at the height of the cold war! Stories and charachters such as Willy Brandt, Albert Speer, the Reverend Billy Graham and numerous others that remind of us of ” the release of Speer and von Schirach from Spandau, pistol-pointing incidents at the train station, wall patrols into East Berlin”… and the fast pace of cold war spy games played during this timeframe.

From 1945 through 1989 Berlin was 110 miles behind enemy lines. The Iron curtain stood as the iconic border between the east and west. The ultimate backdrop for these stories. Built in 1961 it divided the city into two camps, good and evil.

The main character, Major Holbrook, is asked to lunch by the Russian Commandant from the Spandau Prison. He is asked to also attend another meeting and finds himself in th middle of the defection of a Russian pilot and his airplane! Following this success, he is alerted to the intel of a potential assassination attempt by the Red Army Faction of Willy Brandt, the German leader. The action is hot and heavy throughout the book. Its a great thriller from cover to cover.

Bob Orkand, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel of Infantry, served on the staff of the U.S. Commander Berlin at the height of the Cold War. In Vietnam, he was operations officer of an airmobile infantry battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division. He commanded a mechanized infantry battalion in the prototype Volunteer Army brigade and later was Pentagon spokesman on the Volunteer Army project. After retirement, he was president and publisher of the Center Daily Times in State College, Pennsylvania. He has a degree in English from Columbia University, where he was awarded the Bunner Medal in American Literature.