November, 1944, and, despite Germany’s inevitable defeat mere months away, the Nazis’ increasingly unhinged actions have led them to use their new ballistic missile, the V2, to daily shell London to kill as many civilians as possible in what they call “Operation Vengeance”. Wishing to remove the fear of randomly dying while sat in your own home, the British forces attempt to desperately pinpoint the hidden mobile launch sites in Holland for the RAF to bomb - but will the efforts of a small team of female mathematicians be up to the task?
Robert Harris returns to one of his favourite subjects - World War 2 - for his latest novel, V2, and I’m pleased to say it’s his best book in a decade. I always thought the Blitz was an early phase of the war and that, particularly after D-Day, the British Isles was relatively safe, so it was surprising to learn that even in late ‘44 London was still being bombarded with Nazi bombs (and would continue to be until SIX WEEKS before Germany’s surrender)! That’s one of the great things about Harris’ novels - you learn from them while you’re being entertained.
That said, the first part of the novel is a bit slow because there’s so much historical detail to wade through: the devastation caused by the V2s, how they operated, how they were launched, their production. A few of the early chapters focusing on Graf, one of the two main characters and the rocket engineer tasked with ensuring numerous V2s are launched daily, are repetitive as we see him grimly going through his routine, while despising the party sycophants and SS hanging around, again and again.
I liked the other main character, Kay, the British mathematician, and the story really kicks off once she arrives in Mechelen in Belgium. The alternating chapters work brilliantly so that we see one side with Graf as the Germans launch a missile, then we see the British team in Belgium rapidly doing the maths to pinpoint the launch site for the already airborne RAF Spitfires to bomb in 25 minutes - will they do it? It’s genuinely gripping stuff.
There are also more surprises in store for Kay as she explores the Belgian town - the Nazis’ evil still lingers - and Harris keeps you guessing as to Graf’s fate. Both characters are fictional (but are based on real people) and interact with many real people too - most notably Werner von Braun, the head rocket scientist - so, unlike the real “characters” like von Braun, you don’t know whether they’ll make it or not which adds another layer of intrigue and tension to the proceedings.
Harris brilliantly captures the atmosphere of the time so you get a good sense of what it must’ve been like to be in London in those dark days, as well as in mainland Europe, at that point utterly devastated by the conflict. He also brings to life von Braun so you believe in the man’s charisma and genius - Harris is such a skilful writer. And it’s still further tribute to Harris’ storytelling ability that, despite knowing that the V2s did nothing to turn the tide of the war, and the parts both Graf and Kay’s real-life counterparts played in this episode of the conflict were largely insignificant as to the result, the story is still really exciting to read. I felt that the stakes couldn’t have been higher.
Astonishingly, more people died producing the V2 missiles than from being directly killed by them, and Germany spent vastly more on the V2 technology than the Americans did on the Manhattan Project; and the V2s did nothing to change the war for Germany (not to mention were riddled with faults) while the atom bomb would give the Americans decisive victory and transform them into a superpower. Von Braun would also survive the war and, in exchange for his research, ended up working for the Americans and became the head of NASA - his V2 missiles would ultimately evolve into the rockets that took Neil Armstrong to the moon.
Anyhoodles: I really enjoyed V2 - a great historical thriller and Robert Harris’ best novel in years!
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