Reviews

Diary of a Dead Man on Leave by David Downing

kirsten_s's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

cpalisa's review against another edition

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4.0

3.5 stars. I liked the format of the diary written by a communist infiltrator living in Germany in the early Hitler years. It is a time period that I don't read a lot about and certainly a different point of view. The fact that a diary was actually kept was a bit of a stretch, but once you put that aside it was interesting. I liked the epilogue at the end that sorted things out a bit. Not amazing, but not bad, either.

avid_d's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

vern's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

sebastianmalloy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lazygal's review against another edition

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3.0

Note to self: ignore the publisher's description. This is 97% the story of "Josef Hofmann" and only 3% the story of Walter Gersdorff, which isn't what the blurb seems to promise. Getting what Walter thought was going on would have been nice, elevating this from being an otherwise fairly average WWII novel.

kimberly28's review against another edition

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3.0

I enjoyed reading it, but I can't call it good. Our MC did very very little to affect the plot beyond basically babysitting, and he keeps saying "ohh I've been such a good spy but because of reasons I can't do that" every single time he needs to do spy things and we never see him in the 'current' timeline doing anything like good or useful to his cause that he supposedly has championed for decades and successfully caused all kinds of chaos for. Didn't ever make me believe that he could be good at his job.

amjamminbooks's review against another edition

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4.0

I enjoyed this book, it’s outside my usual genre for sure! It was well written, but not a subject I’m familiar with. I ended up looking several things on my phone while reading it so it was a slow read for me. But I liked the characters and it had a satisfying ending!

deniseco07's review against another edition

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3.0

An interesting view of Nazi Germany from a Communist spy. I enjoyed all of the history and detail!

rickt's review

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medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0