Zoo Station

THERE WERE TWO HOURS left of 1938. In Danzig it had been
snowing on and off all day, and a gang of children was enjoying a snowball
fight in front of the grain warehouses which lined the old waterfront.
John Russell paused to watch them for a few moments, then
walked on up the cobbled street toward the blue and yellow lights.

The Sweden Bar was far from crowded, and those few faces that
turned his way weren't exactly brimming over with festive spirit. In fact,
most of them looked like they'd rather be somewhere else.

It was an easy thing to want. The Christmas decorations hadn't
been removed, just allowed to drop, and they now formed part of the
flooring, along with patches of melting slush, floating cigarette butts,
and the odd broken bottle. The bar was famous for the savagery of its
international brawls, but on this particular night the various groups of
Swedes, Finns, and Letts seemed devoid of the energy needed to get
one started. Usually a table or two of German naval ratings could be
relied upon to provide the necessary spark, but the only Germans
present were a couple of aging prostitutes, and they were getting
ready to leave.

Russell took a stool at the bar, bought himself a Goldwasser, and
glanced through the month-old copy of the New York Herald Tribune
which, for some inexplicable reason, was lying there. One of his own
articles was in it, a piece on German attitudes to their pets. It was
accompanied by a cute-looking photograph of a Schnauzer.

Seeing him reading, a solitary Swede two stools down asked him, in
perfect English, if he spoke that language. Russell admitted that he did.

"You are English!" the Swede exclaimed, and shifted his considerable
bulk to the stool adjoining Russell's.

Their conversation went from friendly to sentimental, and sentimental
to maudlin, at what seemed like a breakneck pace. Three
Goldwassers later, the Swede was telling him that he, Lars, was not the
true father of his children.

David Downing grew up in suburban London. He lives with his wife, an American acupuncturist, in Guildford, England.

Praise for Zoo Station

" Zoo Station is a beautifully crafted and compelling thriller with a heart-stopping ending as John Russell learns the personal faces of good and evil. An unforgettable read."
-Charles Todd, author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge series

" Zoo Station (book one) hooked me on the first page."
- Huffington Post UK

Praise for David Downing

"Epic in scope, Mr. Downing's "Station" cycle creates a fictional universe rich with a historian's expertise but rendered with literary style and heart."
-The Wall Street Journal

"Full of striking inventions."
-Kingsley Amis, author of Lucky Jim

"One of the most intelligent and persuasive realizations of Germany immediately before the war."
- Wall Street Journal

"John Russell has always been in the thick of things in David Downing's powerful historical novels set largely in Berlin....Downing provides no platform for debate in this unsentimental novel, leaving his hero to ponder the ethics of his pragmatic choices while surveying the ground level horrors to be seen in Berlin."
- The New York Times Book Review

"Downing distinguishes himself by eschewing the easy ways out. He doesn't shy away from portraying the cold brutality of the Third Reich, and his characters are far from stereotypes-they're flawed, confused and real."
-NPR

"An extraordinary evocation of Nazi Germany on the eve of war, the smell of cruelty seeping through the clean modern surface."
-C. J. Sansom, author of Revelation

"A beautifully crafted and compelling thriller with a heart-stopping ending as John Russell learns the personal faces of good and evil. An unforgettable read."
-Charles Todd, author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge Series

"Downing is brilliant at weaving history and fiction, and this plot, with its twists and turns-all under the terrible bombardment of Berlin and the Third Reich's death throes-is as suspenseful as they come. The end, with another twist, is equally clever and