NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the bestselling author of Fatherland and Munich comes a WWII thriller about a German rocket engineer, a former actress turned British spy, and the Nazi rocket program.The first rocket will take five minutes to hit London. You have six minutes to stop the second.Rudi Graf is an engineer who always dreamed of sending rockets to the moon. But instead, he finds himself … of sending rockets to the moon. But instead, he finds himself working alongside Wernher von Braun, launching V2 rockets at London for the Nazis from a bleak seaside town in occupied Holland. As the SS increases its scrutiny on the project, Graf, an engineer more than a soldier, has to muster all of his willpower to toe the party line. And when rumors of a defector circulate through the German ranks, Graf becomes a prime suspect.
Meanwhile, Kay Caton-Walsh, a young English intelligence officer, is living through the turmoil of war. After she and her lover, an RAF officer, are caught in a V2 attack, she volunteers to ship out for newly liberated Belgium. Armed with little more than a slide rule and a few equations, Kay and her colleagues hope to locate and destroy the launch sites. But at this stage in the war it’s hard to know who, if anyone, she can trust.
As the death toll soars, these twin stories play out against the background of the German missile campaign during the Second World War. And what the reader comes to understand is that Kay’s and Graf’s destinies are on a collision course.
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As with Steve Berry, Robert Harris always provides a truck-load of historical information in his thrillers. You always walk away more enlightened.
Based on true events. Irony even in war and spy craft. How important even small detail can be.
V2 is an excellent historical novel on one of Nazi Germany’s more radical (and desperate) attempts to attempt to turn the tide of WWII, a war they were losing. Although not as effective as some of their other offenses, the dread caused by silent rockets that traveled twice the speed of sound weighed heavily upon an apprehensive Britain, making up for the lack of actual casualties in sheer terror.
Robert Harris’ well-researched rendering of the V2 story follows two characters through the latter part of the war, Kay, a British analyst with the UK’s Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and Graf, a German rocket engineer deployed to Western Europe to assist in launching the attacks that take a mere five minutes to reach London. In a race against time the WAAF, stationed in Belgium close to the rocket launchers, attempt to track the rockets upon launch with sophisticated mathematics in order to alert RAF Spitfires to strike the German attackers before they are able to move their mobile launchers. It’s real cat and mouse stuff and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
As mentioned, the details in V2 are top notch, from the billeting of British personnel in an unwilling population’s locale where years of war have left the Belgians weary and hungry, to the rocket science that propelled the V2s half a mile per second. There are trysts, betrayals and suspense to spare in this fascinating story. The Gestapo are seen as they no doubt were, a brutal secret police force that struck fear into their allies and foes alike. I was more than impressed that Robert Harris was able to pen this book in a relatively short time, during the initial Covid-19 lockdown. Kudos for this remarkable effort.
Robert Harris places people in historical situations. A British intelligence officer and a German engineer on two sides of the infamous V2 rocket. Filled with details about the rocket and the calculations to determine where it will land. Not the brilliance of Pompei or Fatherland, or the sweep of the Cicero trilogy (different titles across the Atlantic) but a good read.
V2: A Novel Of World War II by Robert Harris is a fascinating historical novel set over just four days in November 1944.
Robert Harris has used his knowledge to create a fictional story set around Germany’s V2 missiles. The novel is written from both the German and English point of view with alternating chapters. The reader sees life in London, Oxfordshire, the Netherlands and recently occupied Europe. It is a marvellous novel enabling the reader to understand some of the complexities of war.
There is the theme of trust – remembering that ‘loose lips sink ships’, war work was classified. The reader witnesses lies being told to both sides in order to keep up morale. By November 1944 the Nazis were in retreat but no one would admit this for fear of imprisonment or worse.
Not all Germans were Nazis. Those who were not, had to tread very carefully.
Women had a role to play in war as well as men. Keen mathematical brains and those with an eye for detail were needed. War produces character on both sides. We see just what people are made of.
All the characters were well drawn. I gravitated towards the leading lady. Robert Harris has perfectly captured the atmosphere of fear and helplessness in the face of the V2 whilst also having the indomitable bulldog spirit.
V2 was my first novel by Robert Harris and I definitely want more by him. The historian in me was fascinated. The lover of fiction was entertained. V2 was a compulsive read that I could not put down.
I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.