Berlin Walls: A Cold War Thriller

Rapp puts his extensive knowledge of cold war history and his career in U.S. intelligence to work in his solid if somewhat prosaic fourth thriller featuring CIA officer Karl Baier (after 2019’s The Budapest Escape). In 1961 Berlin, Baier is trying to help Sergei Chernov, a KGB agent with potentially game-changing intelligence, defect. Baier gets Chernov past Checkpoint Charlie in a neat bit of diversion, but then Chernov disappears—he wants out of Berlin not for ideological reasons but so he can track down his brother’s killer. Baier follows Chernov’s trail to Paris, Rome, then back to Berlin, while a former German POW, recruited to be a Soviet spy in 1948, follows Baier. Rapp generates some suspense, but he’s less interested in action than in geopolitics. The book suffers from a lack of momentum and urgency, and most of the large cast are vehicles for exposition. On the plus side, the author understands that personal motivations matter as much as ideological ones. Fans of historical espionage may enjoy this intelligent outing. (Nov.)