Plan D
ABOUT
THE BOOK
A modern-day Cold War thriller: Robert Harris’s Fatherland meets John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
Imagine a world in which the Berlin Wall never fell…
October 2011. While West Berlin enjoys all the trappings of capitalism, on the crowded, polluted, Eastern side of the Wall, the GDR is facing bankruptcy. The ailing government’s only hope lies in economic talks with the West, but then an ally of the GDR’s chairman is found murdered – and all the clues suggest that his killer came from within the Stasi.
Detective Martin Wegener is assigned to the case, but, with the future of East Germany hanging over him, Wegener must work with the West German police if he is to find the killer, even if it means investigating the Stasi themselves. It is a journey that will take him from Stasi meeting rooms to secret prisons as he begins to unravel the identity of both victim and killer, and the meaning of the mysterious Plan D.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Katy
Derbyshire
Katy Derbyshire was born in London and has lived in Berlin for the past twenty years. She translates contemporary German writers, including Simon Urban,Helene Hegemann, Inka Parei, Clemens Meyer, Jan Brandt, Felicitas Hoppe and many others. She writes occasional criticism and essays in English and German, published by Lithub, The Quarterly Conversation, Music and Literature, New Books in German and Der Tagesspiegel. Katy co-hosts a monthly literary translation lab in Berlin and has taught translation in London, Leipzig, New York, New Delhi and Norwich.
Katy Derbyshire was born in London and has lived in Berlin for the past twenty years. She translates contemporary German writers, including Simon Urban,Helene Hegemann, Inka Parei, Clemens Meyer, Jan Brandt, Felicitas Hoppe and many others. She writes occasional criticism and essays in English and German, published by Lithub, The Quarterly Conversation, Music and Literature, New Books in German and Der Tagesspiegel. Katy co-hosts a monthly literary translation lab in Berlin and has taught translation in London, Leipzig, New York, New Delhi and Norwich.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
In Simon Urban’s dystopian crime novel the German reunion never took place and the Berlin Wall is still standing. The setting is East Berlin in the year 2011, where we follow disillusioned detective Martin Wegener on his way through a swamp of corruption and betrayal in search for a murderer and a higher truth. The story is full of satirical details, brilliantly observed and highly gripping.