Reviews for Jack Be Quick and Other Crime Stories

The average rating for Jack Be Quick and Other Crime Stories based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-19 00:00:00 David Moore Some years ago I read and enjoyed a couple of Seymour's books so when I spotted this book I decided to revisit him. The plot at first impression was a fairly simple one. A young East German male is caught and killed by a Stasi unit led by Haupman Dieter Krause while on a spying mission for the British. A decade later, the Berlin Wall has collapsed and the German nation is in the throes of unification with many on the old Eastern side trying to readjust to their new circumstances. Dieter Krause thought he had buried his past and is now being touted around Western Governments by the German spy agency as having inside knowledge of Russian Defence Minister's right hand man Colonel Pyotr Rykov. On a visit to Britain Krause is attacked by the girlfriend of the young dead spy, who witnessed the murder, and so starts a search in old East Germany for evidence against Krause so he can be brought to book for murder. Albert Perkins, an agent for the British Government is also in Germany running his own parallel investigation into the relationship between Krause and Rykov. This is all fairly straight forward stuff but when secret videotape of Krauses's wife and Rykov having sex comes to light another plot is hatched led by another Cold War veteran Olive Harris which if successful makes the others null and void. Unfortunately, IMHO this third plot rather detracts from the overall story for me and only seems to have been added to suggested that the 'fairer' sex can be as ruthless as men. There was some intersting insights into the old East Germany but generally I found it fairly predictable although there was a rather nice twist at the very end which I certainly did not see coming. I enjoyed the author's writing style, the lack of gadgets was certainly refreshing, but perhaps not quite as much as I remembered and perhaps that is the message of the book,you should revisit your past with caution. I enjoyed the book and it was an pleasant diversion but it is also probably not one that will live long in the memory.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-09-15 00:00:00 John Sliwicki I didn´t like it very much. The author´s writing prevents me from "going into" the story. I think there is little "passion" on the writing. Story, characters are not really appealing. Sad because I am very interested on books about Germany before the II World War.