Set in the final months of the Second World War, Katastrophe is an oustanding and taut read written by an author at the top of his game. With visions of the recent conflict in Ukraine in my mind it's so easy to lose yourself in the writing. Although it took a little while to find my footing - I've not read his previous books - I found the writing engaging and the complexity of the characters worth sticking with. Once I'd hit a certain point it was a case of not putting the book down! Fantastic!

I haven’t read any other books in this series and the only difficulty with this was a difficulty in remembering all of the characters - it took me a while to get them straight in my head.

The premise was interesting, but the book was so long - I would say too long - and, probably due to the subject matter, I sometimes found it difficult to get the enthusiasm to open my Kindle and read.

This book portrays the misery and chaos and struggles of war. It’s not an easy read, but the detail and darkness of the novel is a testament to the research and skill of the author.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily and it reflects my personal opinion.
I have not read any other work by this author so the characters were new to me as the action started during the war, rather than at the beginning. The story swapped between the main characters, and also between areas of Europe and Russia, according to what was happening. The story progressed rapidly, maintaining the suspense, mixing historical fact, known truths (such as torture techniques which were horrific but a part of the story rather than the main focus) and fiction of made up characters who represent what was happening at the time. The storytelling was superb, fast-paced and cleverly -wrought, this book was hard to put down until I'd reached its conclusion. I definitely recommend it.

Alas I found this book far too dense and detailed to enjoy. I couldn't connect with the characters at all. I also felt the historical detail was more important than the narrative

I adore historical fiction and this is an excellent example.

The book is immersive and harrowing in parts-its really well written and I would highly recommend.

Having enjoyed earlier works in this series what looks to be the final volume - Katastrophe - came as something of a disappointment. It could be that the months leading up to the end of the war in Europe is a field that has just been picked over too many times to leave much treasure, or it could be that this was always destined to be a series that couldn’t end on too much of a high since, for the characters involved, it was in many ways an anticlimax. However, Hurley continues to conjure an authentic feel to the 1930s and 1940s settings that feature here and his weaving into the narrative historical figures such as Philby are deft touches. Some readers may feel that a more ruthless editing would have been worthwhile. Despite the minor reservations expressed here there is much to like in the narrative and the writing is never less than fluent.

When reading Katastrophe I wasn’t aware that it was the latest in the Spoils of War series and as such was not familiar with the characters. Consequently I found it a bit hard to follow at times and was confused about which character I was reading.
The story takes place at the end of WWII after the Yalta conference and Russia and the allies are racing to Berlin. Both sides are fearful that the other is trying to broker a ceasefire with Germany which would be to their own detriment, ultimately the start of the cold war.

The narrative clicks along at a fair pace, I found the story fascinating and sometimes struggled to tell the fictional characters from the real ones! All in all a very good read.

This is clearly part of a series and some things are partially explaineed, I feel that o was missing some plot points. Easy to read for anyone interested in history and I would enjoy a follow up

This is my first book by Graham Hurley but it definitely won't be the last! I don't tend to like books that switch perspective with each chapter, but I enjoyed this one a lot!

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy in return for my honest opinion.
I had not read a Graham Hurley book before and was delighted that I had the opportunity to read Katastrophe.
As someone fascinated by history, Graham's mix of historical fact and fiction made for a superb and intriguing read.
Graham wove the various strands of the American, British, German and Soviet approaches to the end of World War Two very skilfully, especially given the complexities of those times. His research was very evident throughout the book, though I am not certain that all the various foreign language terms and phrases used were accurate.
I also loved Graham's characterisation, especially of some of history's most notorious characters. How the four main players - Barton, Moncrieff, Nehmann and Schultz - deal with the despair of the gulag, mixed with the politics of the Third Reich, and the jockeying for position in ending the war all made for gripping reading.
Katastrophe is a brilliant blend of fact and fiction that even in its darkest moments remains utterly compelling. It takes a fair degree of skill to create a sense of tension in a series of events where the outcome is already known, but the author achieves it. I felt immersed in the lives of the characters and eager to learn their fate.
However, I also thought that the story came to rather an abrupt and unsatisfactory end, which left me wanting to know what happened next for the remaining players.
I would highly recommend this to those with a passion for the history of the Second World War.

Katastrophe by Graham Hurley. Honestly I didn’t finish this book. I couldn’t pick up on the story line which makes me wonder if this is a series. Thank you for allowing me to review this book

Tense blend of fiction and history towards the end of the Second World War. I haven't read any of this series before but the novel stands on its own and the main characters are well depicted.

This was not my cup of tea. The subject matter/plot was interesting but I did not enjoy the writing style.

This is book 7 of the Spoils of War series. Werner Nehmann has switched from the Germans to the Russians in this war. Each time, he encounters death and destruction. His fate has taken a turn for the worse. There is only one word from what he is encountering - Karastrophe.

A thrilling, beguiling blend of fact and fiction born of some of the most tragic, suspenseful, and action-packed events of World War II. transports you into another land where you can forget your real life worries. Rich in evocative detail

I made it 25% into the book. I could not finish it. It wasn't badly written, but I could not keep track of the names of the characters and what was going on. There were a lot of Russian words also that weren't explained very clearly in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for giving me an advanced copy of this book. This is another book in “The Spoils of War” series by Graham Hurley. Unfortunately, I was unaware that it was part of a series, otherwise I would have read book 1 first.

This is the story of three main characters at the end of WWII, when Germany surrenders. Two of the characters Werner Nehmann, a German journalist and Willi Schultz, a German Abwehr officer are being held in captivity in Russia, but get released to deliver a message and gain intelligence on behalf of Stalin, as Russia gets closer to invading Berlin and the other Allies get closer to gaining surrender of Germany. The third main character is Tam Moncrief, a British MI5 operative, who is following a lead on secret meetings between Germany and the Allies.

I found it extremely difficult to connect to the characters, which I fully attribute to not having read the other books. In addition, as the author was trying to tell the historical facts of things that were happening towards the end of the war, he introduced so many different characters that I found myself getting lost a lot. It would have been helpful for me, if each chapter indicated where the chapter was taking place, and who was the main character for that chapter, as I kept finding myself three pages into the chapter, asking myself “OK who are we with now and who are all these other characters?”. As such, I did not enjoy this book.
My recommendation is read book 1 first, if you like that book keep reading.

First thing of note is that this is part of a series and that I haven’t read the earlier part. The book is filled with rich detail regarding WWII and the Russian influence upon the war. The drawback for me is that I could not get invested with the characters which I’m attributing to not reading the beginning of the series. As a lover of WWII fiction, I am glad to have had the opportunity to read it but it just didn’t connect with me. Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.

I'm always on the lookout for WWII stories that tell a different piece of history. Graham Hurley's new novel Katastrophe promised that with detailing the final days of the war with Germany. It also more heavily featured the Russians that other WWII novels I've read.

When I started reading this book, I didn't realize it was part of a series. The Goodreads listing is a little confusing because it indicates the series is Spoils of War yet there are no other books in the series. With a closer look at a few of Hurley's other books, I noticed that the characters in Katastrophe were also in books from the Wars Within. And the final piece of the puzzle was solved when I checked Amazon and saw that the books from the Wars Within series are now in the Spoils of War series. According to the publisher, though, these books can be read in any order. There are hints in Katastrophe that is part of a series, but at the same time it felt very much like a stand-alone book and the references to past events were just there to give the characters a backstory.

This is the first book I've read by Graham Hurley so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I was drawn to this book because it dealt with the final days of the European War in a way that I haven't read before. In other books I've read we see the liberation of concentration camps, the final push of the Resistance, or the roads filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army.

Katastrophe opens with a German propagandist in a Russian prison camp. Werner Nehmann, a Georgian joournalist who worked for Goebbels, was captured in Stalindgard two years prior. Through sheer will, he has survived the grueling years of near starvation, freezing temperatures, and bone-breaking hard labor. His release comes when NKVD take him from the gold mines because Stalin, a fellow Georgian, wants to meet him. Of course, Stalin doesn't just want to meet him. He has a task for the man you had had the ear of Goebbels.

So from the start, I knew this story would be different just because Russia was prominently included. The following chapters confirmed the differences when we are introduced to MI-5 employees Tam Moncrieff and Urusal Barton.

Katastrophe in many ways focuses on the political maneuvers and behind-the-scene deals that brokered peace in the final days of the Third Reich. We don't get the nitty-gritty details of negotiations, but more a sense of how the allies were trying to get the upper hand to make sure they got their fair share of the spoils of war.

This book is long, and for me, it was a very slow read. I thought at first that the feeling that this was the end was just because it was the end of the war, but now knowing it is part of a series, I think it might be the wrapping up of a series feeling. I didn't connect with any of the characters but again that might be because I was getting the end of their story - the tidying up of loose threads so to speak without the history of the fabric they came from.

Katastrophe has a number of glowing reviews on Goodreads and I suspect many come from followers of the series. For me, this was just a so-so book. While characters were in danger at time, I didn't feel any urgency or tension. While I was reading the book, I felt like Moncrieff when he was sitting outside under the kitchen window talking to the turtle. And the ending wasn't satisfying to me. My initial reaction was, "What! That's it?" Again, though I think if you have been reading this series you may find the ending more poignant.

I don't know for sure that this is the last book in the series as it could very well be a jumping-off point for the start of the Cold War. That too could explain the way this book ended - where we have an ending but it still feels unfinished.

My review is published at Girl Who Reads - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2022/07/katastrophe-by-graham-hurley-review.html

I love faction (sic) where it is so well written that it becomes difficult to separate the fact from the fiction and this is most certainly such a book. The fictional characters are just so real that I could believe they really did what they were purported to do with the real people and now I am rambling.

Basically, this is a very worthwhile read and I commend it to you.