The Phoenix - Softcover

Boetius, Henning

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007109512 ISBN 13: 9780007109517

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

Synopsis

For all those who love novels like Fatherland by Robert Harris, The Phoenix – a brilliant thriller based on the inside story of the airship disaster – is a great find.

Airships were the Concordes of their era – elegant, exciting, luxurious – and the Hindenburg was Germany's pride. When it mysteriously exploded on arrival in the US in 1936 Goering pronounced the disaster an 'accident'. However, whispers soon circulated that it was sabotage. But by whom and why? And why were 28 of the survivors declared dead by the Nazi authorities?

Birger Lund is one of them. Horrifically burnt in the flames, he is unrecognisable even to himself, but like the phoenix from the ashes, he arises from the dead with a new face and a new identity. However he realises he cannot embrace his future without confronting his past. So, briefly reunited with the girl he fell in love with ten years before on the Hindenburg's last voyage, he treks across post-war Germany in search of the truth about the crash. His journey leads him to a remote island off the north coast of Germany – to the home of the last pilot on the Hindenburg. However, the islanders appear to have not accepted the end of the war, and are determined to protect – with violence, if necessary – any secrets the pilot may have...

The author is himself the son of one of the officers on the Hindenburg.

About this title

Review:

‘Impeccably researched, its intensity reminiscent of Ondaatje’s The English Patient.’ Der Spiegel

‘A superlative thirller, a fine book which I put down with a real sense of regret.’ David Robson, Sunday Telegraph

‘Boetius has created an original plot peopled with intensely realized characters, set against a vivid backdrop of prewar politics and the romance of zeppelin flight.’ Publishers Weekly

Synopsis:

Birger Lund, a Swedish journalist on the Hindenburg, was declared among the 28 dead. Reinvented as an American lecturer, he is determined to uncover the truth about the disaster, and in 1947 he tracks down some of the survivors. These include Marta, his one-time lover, who is now living in Rome. He travels on, through a desolate and war-damaged Germany, and reaches the remote island where one of the airship's navigators, Edmund Boysen, now lives. Lund discovers that the islanders appear not to have noticed the end of the war, and live as they did before. They are determined to protect - with violence, if necessary - any secrets that Boysen may have. And Boysen himself has a very different agenda to Lund's. Through the lives of the characters Lund traces, he and we see the euphoria of the creation of the Zeppelins, the importance of their success in 1930s Germany, and the heroic status afforded to the pilots and engineers. He realises that the disaster of the Hindenburg could not have been an accident. But how was the fire created? Why on US soil? And which of the survivors was the killer?

Henning Boetius uses and reinterprets historical events to create a dramatic novel: the vivid description of the last journey and crash; the atmosphere of Germany both before and after the war; and the truth about the crash itself, finally revealed through his character's brave and dogged search.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0007109512
• ISBN 13: 9780007109517
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352