The matchmaker A spy in Berlin

Anne Simpson's husband has disappeared. A translator in West Berlin in 1989 (the Wall still stands, but its foundation is shaky), Simpson married Stephen on the rebound from a divorce; all seemed well until recently, when Stephen's absences begin to raise questions. Does a piano tuner really need to travel so frequently to both sides of the Iron Curtain? Some of the answers appear when a CIA agent, Cooper, arrives at Anne's doorstep, telling her that Stephen was an East German spy and is most likely dead. Not only was Stephen a spy, but his marriage--at least the one to Anne--was a sham, arranged by an East German spymaster called The Matchmaker, who identifies vulnerable women living in West Berlin and arranges for them to meet his agents (called "Romeos"). If the Romeo and his duped Juliet become a couple, the agent has a built-in cover for his clandestine life. Distrusting all the spies, German and American, who want to use her to trap the Matchmaker, Anne sets out to find her own kind of justice. With the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall echoing Anne's personal metamorphosis, Vidich adds a welcome feminist twist to the familiar espionage theme of human lives trapped in the vice of competing and equally ruthless governments. From An Honorable Man (2016) through The Mercenary (2021), Vidich has established his position in the forefront of contemporary espionage novelists.

The opening of this forgettable spy novel from Vidich (The Mercenary) sets the heavy-handed tone: "Peril came early to the apartment on Bethaniendamm, overtaking the changes that were sweeping through the streets and alleys of a divided Cold War Berlin." It's 1989, and American Anne Simpson works as an interpreter at the Joint Allied Refugee Operations Center in West Berlin, debriefing refugees from Eastern Europe. She's happily married to German piano tuner Stefan Koehler. Then a consular officer informs her Stefan is missing, his wallet found next to a canal. Simpson believed her husband had been in Vienna and Prague tuning orchestra pianos. Her alarm grows when she finds out West German intelligence suspects Stefan is working with the so-called Matchmaker, the head of East German counterintelligence, to provide confidential details about NATO deployments. As Anne tries to ascertain her spouse's fate and the truth of the allegations against him, she learns secrets that change her view of the man she loves. The plot moves along predictable lines, and none of the characters makes much of an impression. Vidich has done better. Agent: Will Roberts, Gernert Company. (Feb.)

A woman's life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama. In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson's husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America's CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she's protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he's a "gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most." Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What's going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he's in deep trouble, because he's believed to be working for the Stasi. She's told "the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide." And she's quite believable when she wonders, "Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?" Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is "as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on." Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women--"American. Divorced. Unhappy," and possibly having access to Western secrets--who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. "The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft," a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and "deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers." It's a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word. Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.