Review: 'V2,' by Robert Harris

In the acknowledgments to his 2013 novel "An Officer and a Spy," British author Robert Harris thanked his wife for sharing a home over the years with "successive waves of Nazis, codebreakers, KGB men, hedge fund managers, ghostwriters, and assorted ancient Romans." In that book Harris gave houseroom to pivotal players connected with the Dreyfus affair; in later offerings his household expanded to include scheming cardinals plotting to become Pope and plucky diplomats conspiring to avert World War II.

Harris returns to that conflict for his 14th novel and in doing so supplements the diverse range of characters he has created throughout his career. It is the winter of 1944 and Nazi Germany is down but not yet out. In a last desperate throw of the dice, Hitler has intensified the Third Reich's V2 rocket program. Each "Vengeance Weapon" is fired at London in the hope that a sustained bombing campaign can finally bring this stubborn enemy to its knees.

Overseeing the launch of these long-range guided ballistic missiles from secret sites on the Dutch coast is brilliant rocket engineer Dr. Rudi Graf. For much of his life he harbored dreams of sending a rocket to the moon. The war shattered those dreams and the Nazis co-opted his capabilities. Now Graf's disenchantment grows with the dismal realization that he is both targeting civilians and fighting a losing battle.

Over in London, Kay Caton-Walsh, a Women's Auxiliary Air Force officer, narrowly survives a V2 strike, then resumes her clandestine government work analyzing aerial reconnaissance photos. When an opportunity appears to join a unit of mathematicians in Belgium tasked with tracing the location of the launch sites, Kay seizes it and rises to the challenge.

But soon the Germans cotton that the British are closing in. To neutralize the threat they change their target and make preparations to bomb the Belgian town of Mechelen. Can Kay's team complete their mission there in time? And can Graf convince his masters hellbent on victory at any price that his heart is still in it?

As with Harris' last-but-one novel "Munich," "V2" alternates between its two main characters' perspectives. In Graf's chapters we follow the exploits of a man haunted by his past and now determined to achieve the greater good, even if it means risking his life. For a while he feels like one of the rockets, "launched on a fixed trajectory, impossible to recall, hurtling to a point that was preordained."

When he finds the courage to go it alone and betray his superiors, the novel builds in tension. Kay's equally gripping sections track a woman who begins as a victim in love and ends up a tough and resourceful operative in control in hostile situations.

On this occasion Harris fails to deliver any of his trademarks twists. However, "V2" still manages to be a superlative historical thriller, one that is well researched, deftly plotted and expertly paced.

Malcolm Forbes has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist and the New Republic. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

V2

By: Robert Harris.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 320 pages, $28.95.