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Zoo Station Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Zoo Station is the first in a wonderful new series
Comment: Zoo Station is the first in what I hope will be a long-lived series about a British journalist in Nazi Germany. I'm a great fan of Alan Furst, and David Downing's books (now including Silesian Station) are reminiscent of Furst's style and mood - but there are pleasant differences as well. There has been great character development, and also lot's of attention to detail. As someone who's fascinated by the history of pre-war and World War II Europe, and who's a frequent visitor to Germany, I've very quickly become a loyal fan of Downing and of his characters. What a tremendous effort!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: readable and atmospheric
Comment: I found this to be a readable page-turner. Although it is not up there with the best of Furst, Silva, et.al., it is literate, full of interesting characters, and depicts the atmosphere of the Nazi period in Berlin. I thought the Russell character could have been better developed, especially the politics involved between father and son. The depiction of how young people were socialized in Hitler's Germany was fascinating but I thought that more could have been made of Russell's reactions to his son's education. That said, I very much enjoyed reading this and will read the sequel.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Hardy Boys minus one
Comment: The period is fascinating. The book is not. The characters are one dimensional. With all the talk of irony, that can justly suit a sixteen year old, most all of the humour is buried under ennui. One is led to believe the author bought maps of various European cities and decided to write a book. One has little care for the major characters and their cardboard problems. It is the writing that causes this to happen, not the original situations. I am left with the feeling that Downing was paid by the word. A tighter book by another author might have worked.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Zoo Station
Comment: I am a World War II genre fan. This is one of the best novels I have ever read in this historical fiction class. The plot is interesting and very plausible, the characters very attractive, the descriptions of wartime Europe riveting,the writing outstanding.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Nothing really HAPPENS!
Comment: While I enjoyed this book and found myself wanting to come back to it, it DID take me about 3 weeks to read. By the end of the book I was left with this unsatisfied feeling. Many scenarios begin to unfold but a pin is quickly put in the balloon and all the air let out. There were so many opportunities in this book to really make it interesting but they never materialized. I kept thinking something was going to happen, but it never did. The invisible Gestapo who seemingly trail Russell throughout the second half of the book would have been much more interesting had they actually materialized and terrorized him a bit (as we all know they did in reality). It's hard to describe this book. I loved the author's descriptions and thought most of the character development was excellent, but I found that I really did not care about the characters. There are other better WWII spy novels around and I suggest you look elsewhere. One I would definitely recommend is The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva - an excellent read.

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