Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn - review: Love stalks the hunt for Nazis during the Blitz

There's a lot to be said for a wartime thriller right now, what with the hot weather and short concentration spans. So Anthony Quinn’s latest comes at just the right time. The story revolves around a man called Jack who has no friends or family, and whose work as a fire warden during the Blitz belies his other activity, co-ordinating Nazi sympathisers across Britain — an unprepossessing, if ostensibly respectable, crew.

His work throws him in the way of a young woman called Amy, the joint proprietor of a matchmaking agency in Mayfair, which brings her into contact with all sorts, including some unpleasant anti-Semites. She’s also got a very odd schoolfriend, Marita, a curiously enigmatic but highly capable individual with no obvious means of support but pronounced anti-Jewish views.

Just fancy, then, what happens when one of Amy’s clients turns out to be a lady who works at the War Office and knows all about the Prime Minister’s movements. A catch indeed.

When Jack decides to sign up as one of Amy’s clients, well, it’s only a matter of time before the personal, the professional and the political get all tied up, sometimes at the National Gallery’s wartime piano concerts. We’re left, Hitchcock-style, with our hero and heroine pretending to be lovers in his flat, only for them… actually, let’s leave it there.

Quinn has the reputation for unexpected plot twists and dramatic denouements, and I am possibly the most gullible and easily scared reader any thriller writer could hope for, so it was unfortunate that I identified the under-the-radar villain quite so early; as for the really dangerous agent of Nazi Germany, no one could have seen him coming at all. The denouement then lacked the satisfaction of being a known character, while the reader finally gets cheated on the romantic aspect of the story.

There’s an interesting Northern Irish Protestant character of exemplary ruthlessness and devastating looks but, alas, he doesn’t go far. I am a sucker for spy stories, detective fiction and thrillers — can I recommend Graham Greene’s A Gun for Sale, while I’ve got you? But this one, while a perfectly good read with no obvious historical anachronisms, neither grips nor thrills quite enough.

It’s good to have on hand for the plane, though.

Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn (Cape, £14.99), buy it here.