Love Reading review: "The Spring of Kasper Meier" by Ben Fergusson

Kasper Meier, a middle aged German war veteran living off his wits and black market connections in 1946 post war Berlin, is blackmailed by the young, vibrant and attractive Eva Hirsch into searching for a British airman. Kasper, afraid of the consequences if he refuses, has to accept her demands and his efforts place him and all he holds dear in danger. Meanwhile, allied servicemen are turning up dead all over the city.

This is an accomplished, well paced and exciting story by a debut novelist that I look forward to reading more from. The setting is an interesting and absorbing one, and I hugely enjoyed the way the author brought the unrelenting hardship, horror and misery of life for the individual characters and the city itself vividly to life.

Kasper and Eva are a wonderful couple of characters; their relationship as the story unfolds keeps you eager to turn the pages. And you are rooting for them both throughout the story. The author has created one of the most menacing and frightening pairs of villains I have read of in quite some time – look out for the twins!

When my review copy arrived, I searched for Ben Fergusson online and paid a visit to his website to learn more about him. I was rewarded with a free ebook featuring Kasper and set before the events in this novel; that is also well worth a read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It has an interesting and pacy plot and is thought provoking, the dialogue felt genuine and the characters were ones that you really rooted for or were appalled by. It was also fascinating to read a story set in this period of recent history from a German characters point of view.

The-Mustachioed-Reader

My Rating: 4.5* out of 5.0*

PUBLICATION DATE: July 2014 (anticipated)

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