The Berlin Letters
A Cold War Novel
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4.4 • 11 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Fans of codebreakers, spies, and Cold War dramas will be entrapped by Reay's tale of courage, love, and honor set against the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall." - Booklist Starred Review
Bestselling author Katherine Reay returns with an unforgettable tale of the Cold War and a CIA code breaker who risks everything to free her father from an East German prison.
From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she's expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments--especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s--Luisa's work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.
Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There's only one way to reach his family--by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather's work, her father's identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.
As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century's most dramatic moments--the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night's promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain's most iconic symbol.
A Cold War novel that takes readers to the heart of Berlin to witness both the early and final days of the Berlin WallStand-alone novelBook length: approximately 107,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs
Customer Reviews
A Fascinating Read!
From the writing to the characters to the story, this book will captivate you from the start!
In Katherine Reay’s latest book, The Berlin Letters, this dual timeline book is from the point of view of Luisa parents, during the era of the Berlin Wall and Luisa during the end of the Cold War in 1989. Luisa is a CIA code breaker, and she is assigned to the Berlin Letters Project where she makes discoveries about her own mother and father, whom she never really knew, since she was raised by her grandparents. She even finds matching letters written by her father and grandfather at her grandmother’s house where she lives. When she learns her father is alive and in prison, can she save him in time? How will she react? What will she discover? How will this change her life?
Katherine Reay is one of my favorite authors because you can tell she meticulously researches her books, which turns into a fascinating and well told story that is informative and entertaining! Katherine Reay perfectly captures the emotions and hardships of the time period. If you love Historical Fiction, then this is one to add to your TBR list!