Random Things Tours: Bloody Soil by S.Lee Manning

 

Less than ten years ago, a novel build around a neo-Nazi conspiracy aimed at taking over Germany would have been rather a subject of science fiction than of a spy novel. Nowadays, everything can be as much possible as impossible. The world we are living is becoming a turmoil of unexpected events than the result of rational interesection of well meant actors. Cold War is far away, but in terms of stability under constraint, it was a more predictable realm.

Bloody Soil by S. Lee Manning, an author I had the chance to feature almost one year ago, is set in a Germany that sounds and looks like an upgraded version of Weimar Republic; about to explode and be taken over an anti-immigration movement with clear and open neo-Nazi roots. Lisette, the daughter of a lawyer who was murdered for his involvement on behalf of immigrants, started her own search for a man with a wolf tattoo, the perpetrator of the crime against his father. She is set to do it with any price, even by infiltrating the neo-Nazi movement itself and becoming the girlfriend of the closest associate of the man who is supposed to lead Germany.

But the earthquake it is supposed to take place in Germany doesn´t leave indifferent its old or new allies, therefore, Lisette´s personal vendetta is spinned into an international web of spies, deceit and search for justice. The topic in itself require a complex plot and characters´ planning skills, but Bloody Soil does not disappoint not only because everything comes rightly into place, but also because as a spy thriller it has intelligent and surprising twists. I preferred to let myself lead by the story, without daring to imagine too much where it will lead to in the end and was not disappointed. 

Bloody Soil is a recommended read to the lovers of spy novels set in our times, anchored in contemporary events and mentalities. It also has a good depictions of German places, very atmospheric and realistic.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own