Dan Fesperman: Safe houses (2018, Knopf)
401 pages
English language
Published May 1, 2018 by Knopf.
"In this gripping new work of suspense from the author of The Double Game, a young woman discovers a nefarious truth at the heart of the CIA's operations in postwar Berlin and goes on the run for her life; years later she's gruesomely murdered along with her husband, and her daughter begins to chase down these startling secrets from her past. West Berlin, 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses, rare havens for field agents and case officers amidst the dangerous milieu of a city in the grips of the Cold War. Helen's world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people unfamiliar to her speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her in the sight …
"In this gripping new work of suspense from the author of The Double Game, a young woman discovers a nefarious truth at the heart of the CIA's operations in postwar Berlin and goes on the run for her life; years later she's gruesomely murdered along with her husband, and her daughter begins to chase down these startling secrets from her past. West Berlin, 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses, rare havens for field agents and case officers amidst the dangerous milieu of a city in the grips of the Cold War. Helen's world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people unfamiliar to her speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her in the sight lines of the most ruthless and powerful man at the agency. Her attempts to expose the dark truths about what she has witnessed will bring about repercussions that reach across decades and continents into the present day, when, in a farm town in Maryland, a young man is arrested for the double murder of his parents, and his sister takes it upon herself to find out why he did it"--
"A new novel from Dan Fesperman is always a twisty, well-plotted, intelligent delight. And Safe Houses is no exception. The germ of the story begins in West Berlin in 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses, rare havens for field agents and case officers amidst the dangerous milieu of a city in the grips of the Cold War. But during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities and then, before much longer, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her in the sightlines of the most ruthless and powerful man in the CIA. Her attempts to expose the crimes she has witnessed will bring about repercussions that reach across decades into the present day, when, in a farm town in Maryland, a young man is arrested for the double murder of his parents, and his sister takes it upon herself to find out why he did it . . . Those of us who are Fesperman fans know that his Cold War books are always tremendous fun, which resonate with the best of Le Carre and Tom Clancy. But with SAFE HOUSES he's also given us an intriguing murder mystery in a small town. And while Fesperman always gives us the most lifelike, layered, and thought-provoking characters, he's outdone himself with SAFE HOUSES two female leads, Helen Abell in 1979 Germany and Anna Shoat in present day Maryland. All of Dan Fesperman's prodigious talents are all on display with this wonderful new tale, from his gifts for historical recreation to technical know-how, to political intrigue. Crack the first few pages on this one and see if you don't agree"--
So far my favourite Fesperman novel. I like how the two stories intersected, the espionage world of the late 70s and the crimes it was willing to overlook, and their ultimate consequences decades later. Just very well done.
In 1979, Helen has turned a boring assignment in Berlin into a challenge: if she's going to be in charge of a handful of safe houses for spies who need to come in from the cold, she's going to manage them extremely well. She'd rather be in the field, but the old boy's network thinks she's better off being a secretive hausfrau. It's her own perfectionism that gets her in trouble. While making an unauthorized visit to test the recording equipment in one of the houses, unexpected guests arrive. As the tape runs, she hears their strange conversation, something about ponds and lakes, all unfamiliar code words. After discussing it with a friend who happens to be an old spook and a pleasant bed partner, he insists she return to the house to erase the tape immediately. Unfortunately while she's there, another visitor appears â an agent she knows with …
In 1979, Helen has turned a boring assignment in Berlin into a challenge: if she's going to be in charge of a handful of safe houses for spies who need to come in from the cold, she's going to manage them extremely well. She'd rather be in the field, but the old boy's network thinks she's better off being a secretive hausfrau. It's her own perfectionism that gets her in trouble. While making an unauthorized visit to test the recording equipment in one of the houses, unexpected guests arrive. As the tape runs, she hears their strange conversation, something about ponds and lakes, all unfamiliar code words. After discussing it with a friend who happens to be an old spook and a pleasant bed partner, he insists she return to the house to erase the tape immediately. Unfortunately while she's there, another visitor appears â an agent she knows with one of his female sources. Soon she realizes what she's hearing downstairs is a sexual assault in progress. She intervenes and helps the frightened woman leave the house. Only when it's all over does she realize it's all on tape.returnreturnThirty-five years later, after leading a quiet life on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Helen's cognitively disabled son carries a can of spray paint to the town's edge to make a subtraction from the population after shooting her and her husband in bed. Her daughter Anna wants to know how her gentle brother could have committed such a crime, and she enlists Henry, who admits to being "kind of" an investigator, in recreating her parents' final days. Their quest alternates in sections with Helen's story in Berlin as she tries to extricate herself from the consequences of being in a safe house at the wrong time.returnreturnDan Fesperman is a masterful storyteller, and he layers the two storylines skillfully. The reader who might at one point feel their suspension of disbelief slipping will want to read the author's Afterword. The most incredible aspects of the plot are based on documents that you can examine, just as Anna and Henry do, in the National Archives. It takes a skilled writer to make a good story out of a truth stranger than fiction. returnreturn(Reposted with permission from Reviewing the Evidence)
