Silesian Station

Additional Silesian Station Information

Praise for David Downing:

“[Downing]’s excellent at building suspense . . . and shows a keen eye for describing people and places.”—Sacramento Bee

“An extraordinary evocation of Nazi Germany on the eve of war, the smell of cruelty seeping through the clean modern surface.”—C. J. Sansom, author of Sovereign

Summer, 1939. British journalist John Russell has just been granted American citizenship in exchange for agreeing to work for American intelligence when his girlfriend Effi is arrested by the Gestapo. Russell hoped his new nationality would let him safely stay in Berlin with Effi and his son, but now he’s being blackmailed. To free Effi, he must agree to work for the Nazis. They know he has Soviet connections and want him to pass them false intelligence. Russell consents, but secretly offers his services to the Soviets instead—not for anything too dangerous, though, and only if they’ll sneak him and Effi out of Germany if necessary.

It’s a good plan, but soon things become complicated. A Jewish girl has vanished, and Russell feels compelled to search for her. A woman from his past, a communist, reappears, insisting he help her reconnect with the Soviets, who turn out to demand more than Russell hoped. Meanwhile, Europe lurches toward war, and he must follow the latest stories—to places where American espionage assignments await him.

David Downing is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction for adults and children, including Zoo Station, the first novel featuring John Russell. He lives in Guildford, England.

What Customers Say About Silesian Station:

Being naïve, she permits herself to picked up at Silesian Station by an official-looking man, who actually kidnaps her, and forces her into prostitution. But the American passport requires Russell to do some work for the nascent American espionage service. All these twisted and intertwined espionage relationships, however, are not the MAIN plot of this novel.The main plot centers around a young, innocent Jewish woman who leaves the wilds of Silesia and travels, by rail, into the capitol city of Berlin. How many movie stars fight almost to the death and never show anything but some redness.

His chief protagonist has to travel to report the news, so the book covers Berlin, some parts of Europe recently incorporated into the Third Reich (e.g. He is able to bring a human element to the story. Sicherheitsdienst literally means safety or security service. Then, Russell is approached by the Soviet spy service and then by the German Sicherheitsdienst, the SD. While visiting the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair, Russell is able to wrangle an American passport since he is half British and half American.

At the air raid drill, "wounded" civilians, all the men, are designated as having certain types of bandages covered with "red blood". While the ladies are being transported to freedom, a German official interferes and he is hit on the head, so his bandage is covered with actual blood. The women are put in one ambulance and the men set aside. Russell is therefore employed by the American, British, German and Soviet espionage services. Almost as a side issue to Russell's complex espionage work and his girl-friend, Effi, John Russell becomes involved in a plan to rescue the Jewish girl and a collection of other captive ladies from the hands of the prostitution ring.

An air raid drill is conducted and ambulances pull up to the house. "Silesian Station" by David Downing, 2008Some plot spoilers.In this second book, the hero, John Russell, has just returned from the United States and the World's Fair. He no longer interferes. The author, David Downing, has captured the time, people and place of 1939 Europe.

the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and Austria), and Russell's travels are mainly by train, so the author spends a lot of time describing the railway stations in the centers of big and small towns. His writing is so smooth so that you rarely notice that he has slid foreign words and names into the book. Then, when he is visiting farm of the parents of the kidnapped Jewish girl, he describes his desire for coffee rather than hot tea that the mother offers him in the morning.

So, the author, David Downing, has Russell working for both the American and British services, while he commutes, using trains, around 1939 Europe as a news reporter. All in all, the author has done a wonderful job of capturing the period and the people. Russell uses the Teutonic thoroughness of the official German services to liberate the women.

The house proprietors go along with the orders. When the "rednecks" attack him, he later describes how his face shows a big bruise.

Having been an Alan Furst fan, I discovered David Downing thanks to the Amazon recommendations that pop up in my email. There are six or seven more possible titles, I believe. I have read all three so far and thoroughly enjoy and applaud DD's work. Hopefully, he will continue this series, each book named after a pre-war Berlin bahnhof, or railroad station. Begin with ZOO STATION, then SILESIAN STATION and (so far) STETTIN STATION. I can't wait for the next one.

This is an enjoyable thriller. If you read the three published books,Zoo,Silesian,and Settin Stations as one you will finda very good read. The portayal of daily life and the general uncertainty of the times makes these books worth the effort.It is also a good reminder of why we fought World War Two.

After reading the author's first book - Zoo Station - I could not wait for this book to come out - but while I loved the first book, this one was a huge disappointment. I think the editing was awful, and the story did not flow and keep my interest like the first book did. I am not sure where this author is going with this series, but I will probably not buy another of his books.

It focuses more explicitly on everyday life, and while it would be hard to say that this has the complexities of a routine Eric Ambler spy vehicle, it does contain significant drama. *Silesian Station* picks up immediately from *Zoo Station* in the period immediately prior to the invasion of Poland in August/September 1939. Again, contrary to the lone dispeptic review, the tension of the book rests on the sheer inevitability of the slide to war, which was well recognized across Europe--few had any real illusions about the Nazis, the only question was how long the war could be sidestepped. The author continues to explore the slide toward war, the continued tightening of restrictions on the German population and the possibilities of resistance, particularly directed towards saving German Jews. Contrary to the sole 1* reviewer, this has little to do with Alan Furst's evocations of Europe in the 30s, which are never seen from the British or German perspective. Overall, this is an excellent piece of writing in a field this is admittedly well ploughed, to some extent by Furst and particularly by Kerr's Bernie Gunther. The author has managed to create a plausible character and I for one look forward to at least one sequel.