Brent Monahan’s ESCAPING BERLIN is one of those books that starts simple and clean, with a hero seemingly possessed of a clear goal and a defined strategy, and then draws the reader deeper and deeper into a much more complex, morally ambiguous, and dramatic web full of painful choices and heartbreaking revelations. The sense of a world in collapse, a Germany whose pride and self-confidence have been replaced by cynicism and despair, pervades the book, and as it continues, the horrors of the Holocaust start to make themselves known, denying the protagonist even the comfort of denial or ignorance.

The protagonist spends most of the book acting under an assumed identity, taken from a dead comrade in order to appropriate his friend’s brave deeds and, more importantly, his Ritterkreuz, which will allow him greater respect and freedom of movement. But he’s hardly alone–everyone in Berlin seems to be wearing mask upon mask, except only those with nothing left to lose. And when he, in his new identity, is given the post of Kripomann (police detective) and asked to solve the case of a murdered Nazi official, the twists and turns of the case mirror the dark revelations Reinhardt discovers about the real horrors perpetrated by the Third Reich. It becomes absolutely clear to him, and to readers, that at every stage of events, every revelation, each person involved is faced with a choice they cannot avoid making, between allowing things to continue and standing up to resist, between accepting the stories told by those in power or looking deeper for the real truth.

Ruth, the Jewish woman he’s loved since childhood, acts in part as his conscience, stimulating him to greater action and fiercer courage, but also as a power in her own right, throwing everything she has into the fight for the survival and rebirth of her people. It is the conflict between Reinhardt’s love and loyalty to her, his sense of justice and his conscience’s need to find the truth, and his desire to obey his father’s instructions to be ruthless and single-minded and survive to rebuild a better Germany, that defines the novel’s course and the choices he makes in the end. And in the end, the uncomfortable challenge remains for the reader: how much evil will you be willing to tolerate for your own safety and comfort, before you take the risk of standing up to say “no more”?

Brent Monahan’s ESCAPING BERLIN is a gripping, painful story about survival, courage, shame, and hope in 1945 Berlin, a city whose darkest secrets are coming to light as it collapses.

~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader