An alternative history thriller that captured my interest especially because I’m from East Germany, and the thought of what life would be like if the Wall had never come down has always been at the back of my mind. With the German effort to somehow sweep that part of history under the carpet, or at least play it down, and the inevitable search for someone’s place in the historical past, this book, in imagining the GDR’s continuance, is actually daring. I have read a few books that tried to capture the feel, the essence of that time, and found that most failed. There is something specific about the East German mentality and atmosphere that is incredibly hard to put one’s finger on, and until now I have found only one book – Anna Funder’s Stasiland – that has achieved that. Until now. Plan D managed to evoke that particular flavour from my childhood that I could have sworn the author must have grown up in the East. But alas, he didn’t. As a West-German, who had only been 14 when the wall fell, Urban has done an incredible job re-creating the essence of the country I grew up in, down to the lingo, our notorious need to create abbreviations for everything, the ramshackle state of things and the head-in-the-sand attitude towards it, a frozen grin to not get on the government’s wrong side. Urban paid attention to such cultural detail, I found myself flashbacking to things I had almost forgotten. The undercurrents of paranoia over the permanent, all-pervasive surveillance, the ill-fitting clothes, the remarkable way Urban managed to logically spin the yarn further, organically growing an alternative history from the remnants of the state back in 89, is impressive and incredibly atmospheric, and this in itself makes it a worthy read. Add to that the style of writing, an odd mix of beautiful lyrical language peppered with the harsh lingo so popular in the GDR. It is something oscillating between funny and tragic, beautiful and vulgar, bleak yet wonderfully vivid. A brilliant, imaginative debut with the feel of a classic political spy thriller in the throes of East-West tension.

East Berlin 2011, the Berlin wall did never fall, the GDR does still exist, creaking along, almost bankrupt. Important economic talks with West Germany and Russia are scheduled, when a body is found hung from a gas pipeline. It looks like a Stasi execution but if that were the case it would be desastrous, the scandal would certainly spark a diplomatic crisis. Martin Wegener, a disillusioned, heartbroken people's policeman is landed with the case. West German detective, Brendel joins the investigation and both cops are thrown into a morass of socialist paranoia, bureaucracy and democratic counter terrorism while following leads on a number of generally untrustworthy characters. Will anyone come out of this unscathed? This is a clever political spy novel. The mood is set by Wegener's wisecracking monologues (silent, we are in bug-central after all). The plot is often halted by Wegener's introspection and not everything makes sense at first, mirroring the mental state of the protagonist and the political state of the almost defunct socialist republic. The story is too tricky to be a straighforward whodunit and not fast-paced enough to be a thriller. At first this bothered me a bit as I was expecting something less complex but once I stopped hurrying the plot along I was thoroughly entertained. There are some darkly funny set-pieces and if you are familiar with German politics, plenty of jokes.