Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.
The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow.
Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?
It's such a pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for The Matchmaker today, many thanks to Paul Vidich, No Exit Press and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me and for my advance digital copy of the novel.
The Matchmaker is the third book I've now read by Paul Vidich and is as atmospheric and elegantly plotted as I've come to expect. Set in Germany just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is a spy novel that is about more than just the spies themselves and is an intimate, astute portrait of a woman who could be fairly described as one of their victims.
However, describing Anne Simpson this way would be short-sighted as despite being successfully targeted by 'The Matchmaker', her response to discovering that everything she thought she knew about her second marriage was a lie, is to determinedly attempt to find her own course through the confusion that ensues. When she receives a knock on the door from an American Embassy Consular officer, her life is turned upside down. She works as an interpreter, debriefing refugees from eastern Europe and believed her husband, Stefan Koehler was a piano tuner, whose work took him away on regular trips to Vienna and Prague. Now Stefan is missing, possibly dead and there are several people beyond Anne who are very keen to find out if he is alive or dead.
Demands are placed on Anne by the intelligence agencies who see her as their link to the Matchmaker, an East German counterintelligence officer. His character is inspired by spymaster, Markus Wolf and like his real-life counterpart, he is known as the man without a face, responsible for the Stasi network of 'Romeo' spies who seduced and married women in order to gain proximity to key figures and information. It's grimly fascinating to read about the measures that were employed to dupe these women and Anne's bitter grief and anger are conveyed with empathetic authenticity as she realises her gullibility. As the mistakes she has made mean she is given little choice but to co-operate, there are glimpses behind the scenes into conversations and decisions she is unaware of; like many others caught up in the apparently endless Cold War, she becomes a pawn in a power game of ideology and ruthless ambition.
It quickly transpires that Anne isn't as guileless as it would first seem and although her response could seem unlikely, the insights we are given into her character reveal her to be an independent, perceptively intelligent woman who quickly adapts to her new reality and undergoes her own metamorphosis. She's an intriguing character; not obviously warm yet clearly principled, if not entirely honest, and although this is a standalone novel, I can easily imagine her as a recurrent figure utilising her newly discovered aptitude for clandestine work.
The contrast between the freedoms of West Germany and the oppressive control in East Germany is convincingly described, as is the undercurrent of suspicion that runs through the whole city as surely as the Spree and as seemingly intransigently as the Berlin Wall. However, the timing of this story is no accident and the Wall coming down is a strikingly symbolic representation of everything that is changing; especially for those who have spent decades manipulating and deceiving in the name of national or international security. These are the people who acknowledge they put duty before decency but if justice suffers as a result then can their actions be excused? I loved that there are no easy answers granted here and rather than a definite sense of right or wrong, the actuality is as grey and opaque as the November sky.
The sense of time and place is impeccable throughout The Matchmaker, casting an ominous melancholy over proceedings yet still offering a glimmer of hope. The eloquent prose with its rich, observant descriptions and the intricately layered, gripping plot makes for an engrossing, thought-provoking spy thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Matchmaker is published in the UK by No Exit Press, purchasing links can be found here.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
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Thanks for the blog tour support x
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