MUNICH by Robert Harris

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

The world teeters on the brink of war due to Hitler’s demand in September 1938 that the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia be returned to Germany. Mr. Harris deftly drops us into the resultant political maneuvering through the eyes of junior diplomat protagonists Hugh Legat and Paul Von Hartmann, and their British and German delegations. We are immersed in the settings of the peace conference and the home bases of the diplomats, and in the motivations and insecurities of real historical figures, such as Neville Chamberlin, Sir John Simon and Lord Halifax, and Hitler, General Keitel and Ribbentrop. Mr. Harris masterfully paints the context of the conundrum facing Chamberlin so that his appeasement policy becomes a reasonable choice. This work of historical suspense turns a political peace conference that merely delayed the inevitable into a sharply-paced tale of espionage with two ill-equipped central actors.