A Dangerous Game - Mandy Robotham - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Mandy Robotham

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: January 16, 2025

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction set in 1950s London. This continues Harri Schroder’s story from ‘The Hidden Storyteller’, but it can be read as a standalone. Excellent characters, decent plot, great use of the place and period, slow pace. Though not a bad read, I liked its predecessor better.

Plot Preview:

1952, London. Helen Dexter, aka ‘Dexie’, is a woman police officer trying to prove her capabilities to the male officers around her. However, she is stuck with basic policing duties and making tea for her male colleagues. Things change when a German officer from Hamburg arrives on some secret assignment. Inspektor Harri Schroder is the first policeman to treat Dexie as a fellow police officer, and she is immediately intrigued.

When Harri learns the details of his assignment – tracing an ex-Naxi officer masquerading as an English businessman, he asks for Dexie to be assigned as his fellow officer. Together, they need to focus on the dangerous task ahead, even as London is engulfed by a deadly fog.

The story comes to us in the first-person perspectives of Harri and Dexie.

As I mentioned in my review for ‘The Hidden Storyteller’, I meant to get to this book directly. But as some other reviews revealed that this had a returning character, I read that book first. Officially, these books are tagged as standalone novels, and having read them, I can confirm the same. The story does have some continuity across three books, but that’s mainly in terms of the character’s life continuing ahead from their earlier story. On a macro scale, the plots are independent.

FYI, Georgie Young is the main character common to ‘The Berlin Girl’ and ‘The Hidden Storyteller’. Harri Schroder is the main character common to ‘The Hidden Storyteller’ and ‘A Dangerous Game.’ (Georgie has a cameo appearance in this latest novel.)

Many of my points of feedback are the same as from the earlier book, because though the plot itself was new, I felt the same about the writing style, character development, and historical research. Only the storyline wasn’t as gripping to me as in the earlier novel.

Bookish Yays:

🎖️The introductory note by the author, containing details of the Great Fog of 1952. Chilling!

🎖️Harri – His character development continues well from the earlier book in almost all respects. I love that he finds healing and closure in this book.

🎖️Dexie – A woman who acts her age (thirty-three) and isn’t afraid to step where others might not. At the same time, she is also practical in her decisions and knows when to retreat. I like how she is not portrayed as a feminist more suited to the 21st century. Most of her behaviour is consistent with the era, unlike many female HF leads who are depicted either as too progressive or too aggressive.

🎖️A special Yay to Scooter, the terrier belonging to Harri's landlady. Dogs make every story better and brighter!

🎖️Harri and Dexie are excellent as a team. They get a chance to show their skills together as well as individually.

🎖️Though written in third person, the writing lets us know each character intimately. There’s hardly any internal rambling. Both the perspectives are written equally well.

🎖️Appreciate the clear dates given for each chapter. Very easy to keep track of the number of days passing by as complete dates are provided at the start of every chapter.

🎖️The depiction of 1950s London, from the roads to the people to the post-war climate to the mildly xenophobic attitude towards outsiders (especially Germans) and even the gender discrimination in the London police force: everything feels absolutely real.

🎖️The book also highlights the fate of the Nazis after the war, and the various tactics they used to escape sentencing at Nuremberg.

🎖️I had never heard of the Great Fog of 1952, so reading about it was an eye-opening [pun unintended] experience in many ways. The author writes not just the visuals but also the feeling of helplessness in a vivid manner. Her description of the fog was outstanding.

🎖️I had predicted in my review of the earlier book that Harri would be given a relationship in this book. I was right, but also wrong. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Harri and Dexie will end up together. But almost the entire book has no romance. The focus is more on the case, their professional interactions, and their friendly camaraderie. I appreciate how the author didn’t make romance the focus of the story.

🎖️It was nice to see a cameo from Georgie and Max, returning from the earlier book and in a much happier place.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

⚔️ This book also has a prologue written in first person. However, unlike in ‘The Hidden Storyteller’, the identity of the “narrator” took me a long time to figure out. I don’t think this prologue was necessary for the main story, though it does create an impact. I think the true intensity of the prologue is revealed only if you reread it after the end of the book.

⚔️ Yet again, this book straddles multiple genres: police procedural, espionage, historical fiction, suspense, and action thriller. However, the suspense is quite minimal, the procedural and espionage content is only random, and the action is limited to a few scenes. The first half is more about Harri and Dexie learning to work as a team and to go beyond their individual past traumas. The action comes quite late in the story. Most of the book reads as a general historical fiction, which isn't bad but also isn't exciting.

⚔️ For some reason, this story didn’t grip me as much as the earlier one. It might be because I’d rather read a serial killer story than one about politics and spies. Though I wasn’t bored by the book, I also wasn’t hooked onto the narrative and could also keep the book aside easily. At no point did I feel compelled to read “just one more chapter.” The slow pace didn’t help.

Bookish Nays:

💣 For some reason, Harri’s character suddenly seems obsessed with using English idioms in his conversations, appending something like “as you might say” or “as the English say” to the line. After a while, it gets annoying.

💣 At times, certain reveals and character actions felt more like a way of forcing a twist into the story than as a genuine common-sense move. Such scenes didn’t flow smoothly as the deliberate change in character stance was quite evident.

💣 Dexie was only supposed to be Harri’s local liaison and partner. It didn’t make sense to see her be a part of secret meetings with MI5 and high-ranking officials, especially considering the general attitude towards female officers.

All in all, this was still quite good, especially in the way it brought the Great Fog alive and highlighted the attitude towards women officers. However, the slow pace and the minimal action meant that this didn’t end up as captivating as ‘The Hidden Storyteller.’ This won't be my favourite Mandy Robotham work, but that’s also because I expect more of her.

Recommended to historical fiction fans looking for an unusual post-war story set during the Great Fog of 1952 and don’t mind slow pace and spies.

My thanks to Avon Books UK for providing the DRC of “A Dangerous Game” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.