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    The Arms Maker of Berlin: A Novel
    The Arms Maker of Berlin: A Novel
    The Arms Maker of Berlin: A Novel
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Arms Maker of Berlin: A Novel

    Written by Dan Fesperman

    Narrated by Dick Hill

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When Nat Turnbull, a history professor who specializes in the German resistance, gets the news that his estranged mentor, Gordon Wolfe, has been arrested for possession of stolen World War II archives, he’s hardly surprised that, even at the age of eighty-four, Gordon has gotten himself in trouble. But what’s in the archives is staggering: a spymaster’s trove missing since the end of the war, one that Gordon has always claimed is full of “secrets you can’t find anywhere else...live ammunition.”

    Yet key documents are still missing, and Nat believes Gordon has hidden them. The FBI agrees, and when Gordon is found dead in jail, the Bureau dispatches Nat to track down the material, which has also piqued the interest of several dangerous competitors. As he follows a trail of cryptic clues left behind by Gordon, assisted by an attractive academic with questionable motives, Nat’s quest takes him to Bern and Berlin, where his path soon crosses that of Kurt Bauer, an aging German arms merchant still hoarding his own wartime secrets. As their stories—and Gordon’s—intersect across half a century, long-buried exploits of deceit, devotion, and doomed resistance begin working their way to the surface. And as the stakes rise, so do the risks....

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateAug 4, 2009
    ISBN9781423346692
    The Arms Maker of Berlin: A Novel
    Author

    Dan Fesperman

    Dan Fesperman’s travels as a writer have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won their Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, and The Prisoner of Guantánamo won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore.

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    Reviews for The Arms Maker of Berlin

    4.5/5

    13 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      My dad said he really enjoyed the book which is a compliment indeed.
    • 4/5
      A nice, satisfying, thriller mystery, with the main character a contemporary historian unraveling old WWII events in Germany and Switzerland, that relate to possible contemporary political issues.Lots of tension and potential danger, with numerous secondary characters ending up dead along the way, but it is not a Bourne-type white knuckle ride, but still a delicious, complex mystery that unfolds at a fast pace. Lots of details of events and places, richly laid out. More details would spoil the enjoyment. Fesperman is a a very literate and rich writer, a well crafted tale.
    • 4/5
      When his former mentor is arrested for possessing stolen classified documents, professor Nat Turnbull is called to the rescue. When the FBI makes it clear to Nat that they want him to undertake research on the stolen files and report to them, Nat reluctantly agrees, thinking he'll be helping his mentor, Gordon Wolfe, in the process. The material in the boxes of documents, minus some missing folders, narrows Nat's focus to war-time Berlin and Switzerland, the activities of Allen Dulles and the OSS, and a German resistance organization called the White Rose with links to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Nat isn't the only person interested in the files, and he races against competing interests to be the first to locate the missing documents and the secrets they hold. The book alternates between Nat's current day search and two World War II era stories that follow Gordon Wolfe and Kurt Bauer, son and heir of a German arms dealer.I loved the treasure hunt aspect of the book. Although Nat faces occasional physical threats, the adrenaline rush comes from Nat's race against time as he deciphers Gordon's clues. At times I felt like the historical sections were holding up Nat's progress. The earlier parts of the historical back story didn't have the same urgency as Nat's quest, and I found myself wishing I could rush through those parts to get back to the action. (This wouldn't have been easy to do since I listened to the audio version.) Fesperman did his homework, and the result is a historical spy thriller laced with enough truth to be believable.
    • 4/5
      The "Arms Maker of Berlin" is a very intriguing novel about a history professor named Nat Turnbull. The story begins with the professor being abducted from his office by the FBI who wants him to recover missing OSS documents from World War II concerning his mentor. The documents have to do with a resistance cell in Berlin called the White Rose and an industrialist millionaire who would like those files to disappear. The plot takes place in current time, as well as Nazi Berlin, alternating effortlessly between chapters, but most of the adventures take place when Nat and a German researcher named Berta, try to uncover the mystery and are sent on a goose chase by Nat's mentor while avoiding everyone from the FBI to the Iranians. I thought this book was engrossing, exciting, well paced and surprising (I did not foresee the ending) as Nat said to his students at the end "I hope to show you the ways in which history is a living entity".