A Piece For Our Time?

To an extent you know what you're going to get with Robert Harris's historical fiction. There's always going to be a strong feeling of time and place based on thoroughly detailed research. You're going to find characters given real depth whether they be genuine historical personalities or the the fictional ones that Harris uses to carry the story. All of that is true here in a novel that I found highly satisfying to listen to even if it didn't hit the heights of excitement.

There is a dual aspect to the story in that two old college friends find themselves on opposite sides of the conference with both playing their own high stakes games. The book provides a brief but extremely important episode in their lives and the history of Europe. To me it felt as much like a docudrama as a fictional novel as the plot stuck so closely to historical fact.

The narration by David Rintoul is steady with no attempt to give the non-British characters any kind of national accents. It feels entirely appropriate to the text with perhaps the only element of real theatre coming late on with some of Hitler's outbursts.

Harris is clearly scratching some kind of itch here. He is returning to the subject of a documentary he made almost 30 years ago and he portrays Chamberlain with considerably more sympathy than many historians. The quality of the writing is, as you would expect from this author, is extremely high. I don't think it's the most thrilling of thrillers but it is a good story with a very authentic feeling atmosphere to it.

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59 people found this helpful

Takes us heart-stoppingly back in time

Robert Harris writes with his inimitable fluency and ease, effortlessly he carries his reader with him through a very tense moment in our history. Narration is first class. Terrific book, and terrific audio book especially!

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2 people found this helpful

Couldn't stop listening

Excellent account of events before the outbreak of WW2, with a storyline convincingly woven in to them.

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a topic well covered

excellent historical insight into period of time leading up to world two and the reality of the time's

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Superb narration of an excellent book

A gripping fictional rendering of a huge historical moment. The narration is first class - one of best performances on an audiobook I’ve heard.

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David Rintoul reading Robert Harris - a real pleasure

After having read as well as listened to An Officer and a Spy, I was delighted to find that David Rintoul was also going to be the narrator for Munich. He is an excellent narrator (I highly recommend his readings of Donna Leon’s works). There is something about David Rintoul’s narration that, to my ears, lends itself wonderfully to the characters depicted by Robert Harris. As for the story itself as ever with Robert Harris I feel not only more educated about a fascinating time in history, but also very entertained and captivated in the process. Another tour de force which was well worth the wait.

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excellent

Wasn't sure to starr because we know what happened at Munich historically but really gripping

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Another great Harris/Rintoul Audiobook

Robert Harris writes believable historical fiction (or political fiction, alternative history). His prose style is smooth and articulate. Comparison with the historical fiction of Ken Follett (Column of Fire) issued a few days before underlines Harris’s infinite superiority and Rintoul’s skill as a narrator!
Most of the personages in the book are real people- the ones we see in old Pathé newsreels, saw on TV news as children, and the main (fictional) protagonists, once friends at university, estranged for six years as Hitler rises to power, after a difficult holiday in Munich. Fate, with some help, brings them back to Munich, as Chamberlain desperately tries to avert war.
With the release of secret government documents as time allows, has resulted in historians reassessing Chamberlain’s actions in 1938 more positively, and Harris has followed this line, and added some speculative tension to the real horror of 1938 - the building of primitive fortifications in central London, issuing of gas masks to adults and children (babies too), the exodus from London of anyone fortunate enough to have somewhere to go!
Rintoul as usual reads the story with clear diction, well paced, and tackles dialogue in German, French and Italian (always translated to English, so don’t panic if you’re not a polyglot) with convincing pronunciation and fluency.
Literate, but never pompous or condescending, as we expect of Harris. Look forward to his next book!

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1 person found this helpful

must read

an amazing book which needs a read, if you want to understand more about hitler, here is a good start

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1 person found this helpful

Bit of an eye opener.

Good insight into a pivitol point in history. I now see Chamberlin in a new light.
dave from Dudley

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