New Berlin Station Poster - Richard Armitage

New Berlin Station poster on their Facebook page  - thank you Epix

Richard Armitage as Daniel Miller - Berlin Station 

Listening to Olen Steinhauer

I'm more and more curious about Berlin Station and more and more intrigued. 

I've started listening/reading my third Steinhauer book (thank you Audible). I first listened to All the Old Knives and now have started the Yalta Boulevard Sequence:

http://www.olensteinhauer.com/yalta-blvd/#yalta-boulevard-sequence

Though I must apologize to the author because after finishing the first book, The Bridge of Sighs, I've skipped three books to start on Victory Square.  I just had to know what would happen to the lead character, Emil Brod!

But I will come back to the right order, and the next one I'll read or listen to will be The Confession, the second book in the series.

What is the Yalta Sequence/Series?  It takes place in a fictional Eastern European country behind the Iron Curtain from 1948 to 1989.   There's one book per decade.  We experience this world through the lives of homicide detectives and state security officers. We share both their work life and their private life, and how they intersect. We also see a political system developing from the beginning after World War II to the end in 1989. (I spent part of my childhood in a similar political system behind the "Caribbean iron curtain" so the setting piqued my interest.)

As I listen to the books of course I'm thinking about the series we'll see this fall, Berlin Station. I'm wondering about the character of Daniel Miller.  Reading/listening to the books, I can see why Richard Armitage would be perfect for this television series, and also why he would find this character of great interest. And I don't know anything about his Daniel Miller, other than what little we've been told, so I'm basing this on Steinhauer's other characters. We know Daniel is a new CIA field agent undercover in Berlin in the present day. But as I listen/read these books, I can see all the layers that the spies and policemen in these stories have, and I can wonder about Daniel.

Now, I'm not about to write a detailed study of the work of Olen Steinhauer, but just as an average reader, I can admire how he weaves the dark corners of the soul with the dark corners of the world.  His characters whether "good guys" or "bad guys" are all very multi-layered.  He's also a great observer of bureaucracies and how they perpetuate themselves, how they determine what gets resolved or not, how it affects those who work within them, whether in the West (These Old Knives) or in the East (Yalta Sequence).  

There's also love and romance, but maybe the kind that is more realistic, or believable or cynical. Yet, there are loves that endure even amid heartbreak and frustration. Yes, we can love someone, but not always like them. Will there be a romance for Daniel Miller? 

I find interesting that more than one of the love stories are younger men and older women?  Not something you see too much in a US TV show, so will we? 

There's also humor. Dark humor for sure, but humor. I've laughed out loud a few times in my car listening to the books on my way to work. 

One of my favorite scenes in Bridge of Sighs is young detective Emil Brod's first day of work. We've all been there, horrified by sitting alone in our new desk, not knowing what to do. There are great descriptions of Brod's co-workers as he observes them giving him the silent treatment. So much information about each character in just a few sentences. Yet, first impressions can also be quite wrong, can't they?  

One of my favorite shows ever is Spooks (MI5) and I love lovely Lucas North. But I'm sure now that I'm becoming immersed in Olen Steinhauer's work that the new show will be equally excellent, but unique and original. And just by the description we've had so far Lucas and Daniel are different characters. Lucas was an experienced and excellent field agent, who when we meet him has spent eight years in Russian prison being tortured and interrogated. (No, we're not going to discuss Season 9 at all!). Daniel we are told is a cerebral rookie field agent learning on the job. 

I have high hopes for Berlin Station. Truly I think it will be an interesting new adventure for Armitage fans.  I just know Richard must be enjoying being Daniel Miller and making this character his own, as he always does. 

Getting to know a bit about Berlin Station Writer Olen Steinhauer

Olen Steinhauer

So now that Richard Armitage is starring in the spy thriller Berlin Station for Epix, I'm enjoying doing a bit of research about the creative team behind the series. I always enjoy the adventure of Richard's new projects. 

Today I found a New York Times interview with series writer and producer, and successful spy novelist Olen Steinhauer.  Below are some excerpts from the interview that may give us some ideas about the direction Berlin Station may take. 

 

What makes a good spy novel?

Depends on the reader. For me, it’s the moral muddiness of the ends/means equation that comes up more often in spy fiction than in, say, murder mysteries. The best espionage stories not only ask questions about how spying is performed, but they also question the value of the job itself. And when the profession becomes a metaphor for living, the spy novel can delve into the very questions of existence, while thrilling the reader with a convoluted plot. Do all that well, and you’ve got a potential classic on your hands.

What’s the best spy novel you’ve ever read?

I’d love to have an original answer here, but I always return to John le Carré’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” It’s a truly exquisite book, full of mesmerizing voices, acute social commentary and a moral weight that is, to me, on a par with the Great Books of English literature.

What book made you want to write spy novels?

“The Spy Who Came In From the Cold” led me from crime fiction to spy fiction (Raymond Chandler originally brought me to crime), but it was “Tinker, Tailor” that really sealed the deal. Having spent my 20s wrapped in a self-consciously literary cocoon, shunning genre, it was a shock to the system to realize that a great novel could be written with international intrigue and the occasional gun, and not only about suburban malaise.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Your favorite book? Most beloved character?

Influenced by my father’s collection, I was very definitely a sci-fi reader, finding imaginative worlds that took me away from the mundane sidewalks of late-’70s America. By my teens I’d moved to other pastures — a lot of Baudelaire and Rimbaud — but in those early years I remember being obsessed with the Well World series by Jack L. Chalker. (Though by now I’d be hard pressed to remember any of the story lines.)

Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite or the most personally meaningful?

My second book, “The Confession,” focuses on a police officer whose marriage is falling apart. Halfway through the book’s composition my own marriage collapsed, and after months of writer’s block I got back to the book and was able to see the many details of that particular brand of despair that I’d gotten completely wrong. So I tore up a lot and went back to it, eventually writing what I still consider one of my “truer” novels.

If you could pick one of your books to be turned into a movie or TV series, which would it be and why?

While there’s been some recent action on this front, in particular with “All the Old Knives,” I would still like to see my first five novels, which take place in a fictional Cold War Eastern European country over 50 years, grow into a film or television series. I’d love to see how someone else reimagines that world and takes its characters down a half-century of European history.

 Sunday Book Review

Olen Steinhauer: By the Book

APRIL 23, 201

 Berlin

I've been to Berlin once in my life, West and East, before the fall of the  Berlin Wall.   Yes, long time ago.  I'm very excited about this new series for Richard, since I love spy stories, and look forward to seeing his character, Daniel Meyer, on the streets of Berlin.