As of: January 31, 2024, 3:04 p.m
By: Sven Trautwein
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With 'How to Die', Andreas Pflüger wins the German Crime Prize 2023. Excitement is guaranteed.
The book of the week is terrifically entertaining.
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Right at the beginning of the thriller you notice the power of words that Andreas Pflueger has mastered.
In Pflueger's new book, the reader goes on a journey through time to the 1980s, in which he accompanies an analyst from the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).
In addition to James Kestrel and Kim Koplin, the German Crime Prize 2023 went to Andreas Pflüger for “How to Die”.
Completely right.
The book of the week.
Book of the week: “How to die”: That’s what the book is about
Andreas Pflueger wins the German Crime Prize 2023 with “How to Die”. An action-packed contemporary story.
© Georg Moritz/dpa/Suhrkamp (montage)
In addition to crime novels, Andreas Pflüger also writes screenplays and plays.
For “How to Die” he skillfully adopted the idea that in a blockbuster you have to lay it on thick and it’s best to start off with a huge bang.
And spoiler: don't worry that the tension will fall by the wayside.
The author knows how writing and building tension works.
Because “writing is a real craft,” as his crime writer colleague Nele Neuhaus tells me in an interview with Ippen.Media.
Winter 1983. On the Glienicke Bridge everything is ready for the most spectacular exchange of agents in history.
KGB officer Rem Kukura – code name Pilger – is to be exchanged for the son of a Politburo member.
In the middle: Nina Winter, who is the only one who can identify Kukura.
But on the bridge, Nina is swept into an inferno, and the fate of her and Rem becomes a question of war and peace between the superpowers.
Blurb/Suhrkamp
Without further ado, right at the beginning of the book, Pflüger blows up the Glienicke Bridge, which the English call the “Bridge of Spies,” in Berlin.
During the Cold War, the bridge in Potsdam was the location for the exchange of numerous agents.
In the book, the exchange between two spies fails.
Pflueger skilfully takes the speed out of the story in order to pick up the pace again later.
The story focuses on a young Federal Intelligence Service agent and her high-ranking source of information in Moscow, a KGB employee whose son also plays a key role.
The plot revolves around the main characters and other exciting characters.
Pflueger illuminates the Cold War scene in the 1980s, which offers striking parallels to the current East-West situation and the war in Ukraine.
Book of the week “How to Die” by Andreas Pflüger: Conclusion
A sophisticated novel about trust, deception, betrayal and love.
Ingredients that make a very good novel.
Spiegel Online
compares “How to Die” with the works of John le Carré, who was praised for his spy thrillers.
Many consider his “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” to be the best spy novel.
Pflueger's thriller creates a book worth reading with its fast pace, high level of language and lots of action.
Atmospherically dense, the book entertains from the first to the last page and provides a contemporary history of the Cold War.
Andreas Pflueger “How to Die”
2023 Suhrkamp, ISBN-13 978-3-518-43150-4
Price: hardcover €25, e-book €21.99, 448 pages (different format)
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Andreas Pflueger: About the author
Born in Thuringia in 1957, Andreas Pflüger spent his childhood and youth in Saarland.
He has been living in Berlin for a long time now.
His creative work spans a variety of genres: plays, radio plays, screenplays, documentaries and novels.
He made a name for himself with the spy thriller “Operation Rubikon”, the award-winning best-selling trilogy about the blind elite police officer Jenny Aaron and Ritchie Girl.
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