About this deal
Meanwhile, there is also tenderness and youthful romance in the chess sections of the story where English boy Michael meets Russian girl Yulia at a tournament in London. She is the daughter of Sergei (mentioned in the opening quotation), whom she knows to be somebody important, something to do with military secrets. He writes about chess in the newspapers. She and her father pretty much communicate through chess.
In 2004, one such partisan, Greta, a member of the formidable team known as the three sisters is relating the story of her time as a partisan to a member of the Lithuanian ministry responsible for memorials. Since the war she has become a skilled Nazi hunter, tracing and killing war criminals. Her biggest hunt however was in 1961 for a Russian called Maxim Karpov, now high up in the Kremlin and known as the Chief Administrator who was responsible for killing a whole village of Lithuanians, suspected of aiding the partisans. Once Greta took the girls, Vita and Riva, foraging for mushrooms in the deep woods. Just to show them which were poisonous and which were good to eat. She knew what to look out for: a blue stain in the flesh, pink gills, or a white ‘skirt’ halfway down the stalk. The ending of the book was also a bit of a disappointment. In several ways. Some of what some characters did just makes very little sense beyond doing something that sounds dramatic when explained, but not when shown. Other aspects are very Hollywood and thus highly unrealistic. Maar door de spanning in het verhaal bleef het me wel steeds prikkelen om terug verder te willen lezen. Tijd zal ook wel tegen gewerkt hebben, zodat ik het verhaal niet snel genoeg kon verwerken. Daarom maakte ik de keuze om hem verder te beluisteren, in plaats van het boek verder te lezen. Hierdoor kon ik andere huishoudelijke taken wat aangenamer maken en kon ik gelijktijdig wat binnenkwam ook beter opnemen.
Worrall slaagt er voortreffelijk in om de drie plots te verweven tot een ingenieus spionageverhaal. Hij springt tussen verschillende tijdzones en personages. Door stukje bij beetje prijs te geven van het verleden van elk personage begrijp je dat oorlog zo verschillend kan impacteren.
Ik was heel nieuwsgierig naar die prachtige cover van De Partizaan. De schaakstukken, verwerkt in de titel en de opmerkelijke zin : In elk spionnenspel telt elke zet … There’s money in there. The same as last time. You’ll recognise my uncle’s handwriting. His memory failed him when it came to Lithuanians who joined the SS, but he was good on other nationalities. I want you to confirm all the names he wrote down and add as many others as you can…every name you add helps keep yours off the list.” Zelf ben ik absoluut géén fan van oorlogsverhalen, maar De Partizaan heeft me van mijn sokken geblazen. Wat een indrukwekkende plot. Uiteraard heb ik de kern van het verhaal opgezocht met bibberende benen. Stel je voor dat dit écht een plan was… The style of writing is strange in parts For example, “her eyes were a dramatic shade of green, with a hint of the Central Asian steppes in them”. And there’s more: “Michael leaned in so close to the girl that he could hear her eyelashes when she blinked”. Sure, spies may have supernatural powers but … After a moment, he crossed the street and thought: This morning, I was a schoolboy. Now I’m following a group of Russian spies into a hotel. When I go through these doors, nothing will ever be the same again.”Her mother, Anna, was the first woman to join the Politburo, so Yulia is carefully guarded at all times. When she attends the chess tournament, she is constantly escorted by two menacing men, who actually sleep in her suite at the hotel. Placed under threat by Karpov, Yulia has to rely on her former body guard ‘Vassily’ a fixer and an agent in the GRU, Soviet army intelligence, and a rival of Karpov’s. First thing that caught my attention was the name. Partisans were the freedom fighters of Lithuania, during German and Soviet occupation.