V2: From the Sunday Times bestselling author

A pretty average storyline interspersed with interesting historical and scientific background information. A little far fetched at times but still a good escapist read.

After the truly awful The Second Sleep, it's good to see Harris back on form with V2. He's a much better writer on the Second World War than other periods of history he tackles, and that shows in the atmosphere and detail he creates in V2. As with Enigma, the focus here is on the technical nature of war and the ingenuity that went into creating the German V2 rockets , and the equally inventive nature of the people who tried to solve the challenge of where the rockets were launched from so that the sites could be destroyed.Harris explores the conflict through two perspectives - a German scientist launching the rockets, and a WAAF officer working as part of the team in Belgium trying to track down the launch sites. The brooding atmosphere of wartime Belgium is done with real conviction. At times there is almost a Simenon-like sense of time and place. If anything, it's the location and attention to detail about the construction of launch of the V2s that makes the book so engaging. Rather like many of the rockets, the plot seems to veer off course a bit towards the end, and things seem to wrap up rather quickly and without a true sense of conclusion. As Harris says in his interview with Simon Mayo in one of the excellent Books of The Year podcasts, the whole episode of the V2 rockets was an exercise in failure in the closing stages of the war. Perhaps it is this that made the book challenging to bring to a more satisfactory conclusion. Well-written, vivid and at times an immersive experience, there is much here to enjoy - and indeed learn - about the nature of the war and the technology and problem-solving that was so important.

I really enjoyed this book, Robert Harris is a brilliant author, he detail is amazing it took me to where it all happened.

I’m glad I’m not alone in beginning to wonder if Robert Harris (for whom I could previously not find enough praise) has rather tired of writing. His last few books certainly give that impression. He points out that this was a lockdown project, inspired by an obituary about a WWII WAAF Officer who had served in Mechelen, and while most people could not knock out anything like as good a lockdown oeuvre, it is pretty thin compared to his previous best work.As ever, Harris is good on detail (even if everything about von Braun, Peenemunde and the Nazi rocket project is easily accessed via the wonder of Google) and he builds an entertaining enough story with fictional characters interwoven with the real ones (like in Munich). The outcome is known, and there is some extra technical detail – dare I say padding – to make it feel more researched. I found the fictional characters a bit ho hum – some fairly cardboard cut-out RAF types and the clever, sheltered convent girl who’s discovered sex and liberation in uniform. While it’s on record that plenty of well brought up middle class girls put themselves about during the war, taking advantage of opportunity and fear that they might not live to see the next day, I didn’t find Kay particularly sympathetic.Firstly, her known dalliance with a Senior Officer and subsequent favour posting would surely make her not only unpopular, but a security risk. But not as much as the young female calculators being thrown into a strange foreign town, and left to find their way to and from their billets with minimal to no supervision. As they stumbled around the streets in uniform, looking for where to go, it was like a big finger pointing them out to any spies, Nazi sympathisers and ne’er do wells. And not at all like the Women’s Services of my experience, where close supervision to the point of cloistering was the norm. (And if it really was described as being so in the WWII lady’s memoirs, I’m sorry). The atmosphere of the tense, speedy mathematical predictions of the launch sites was quite exciting, but I found the sub plot with the local family unlikely. Flighty Barbara gets her come-uppance, but Kay, despite disobeying explicit orders (do NOT make friends with locals, or get involved with them) decides to have a one night stand with the son of the rather peculiar household on which she’s billeted after only a few hours acquaintance. We are left uncertain as to whether Arnaud (friends with Nazi spy and Barbara’s nemesis Jens) is complicit, or not. I was left hoping that Kay got a thorough going dressing down from the formidable Flight Officer Sitwell, but it seems she just had a friendly chat with a couple of blokes and the option to stay.Later, back at RAF Medmenham & Adastral House, the German rocket scientist team is interrogated by the British before skipping off to America (true, apparently). Sympathetic German Dr Rudi Graf (who has his own sub story) appears to decide to stay in the UK for Kay and ….. Well, there it fades out. I was initially veering towards 3 stars, but not being allowed 3 1/2, I’ve generously upped it to 4, which I feel is a bit of stretch.

This is not a patch on Harris's earlier writing which has been going downhill since Conclave. Compared to Enigma and Fatherland, for instance, V2 is not well written, parts of the plot are predictable or improbable, the book length is short and the ending is contrived to say the least. It's as if Harris has decided that he has written enough to satisfy the high price tag so calls is a day. A real disappointment.

V2 is a historical novel based on factual events; that is, the desperate measure by the Nazis of launching the titular missiles at London when the war was lost, contrasted by the attempts by the British to stop them. Chapters alternate between Graf, one of the scientists involved in the maintenance and launching of the V2s, and Kay, a young woman who is part of the efforts to find and destroy the missile bases. This approach works perfectly, building tension by following the two sides in what becomes a tale of personal as well as professional conflict. Harris feed in bits of backstory about how Graf became involved in the design of the weapon, and his struggle with his conscience and authority as the story unfolds. There are comprehensive references at the back of the book for those interested in discovering more.

After the appalling dullness of Munich, I approached this latest wartime offering of Harris with some trepidation. But it is marvellous . Great personal storyline woven into historical detail so that mind and heart are equally engaged.