World of Mirrors is set on the Baltic island
of Ruegen in what was then East Germany. It’s June, 1990. The Berlin Wall is
down, the 40-year reign of the Communist government is over, and the country
has voted to re-unite with West Germany.
This period is called “the year of miracles,” or “the time of the
turn.”
There are no new rules to replace the old
rules. The citizenry is
confused. What will happen to
jobs? To pensions? To children’s education. The Stasi, the secret police who spied
on everyone in a country where one out of every 30 people was an informer, have
tried to melt back into the population.
But have they? The Soviet
navy still sits in the Baltic port of Sassnitz, ready to return home to an
uncertain future, maybe even not enough food. North Vietnamese “guest workers” who were brought to East
Germany as little more than indentured servants are clamoring to stay in the
West. Even the dogs that patrolled
the wall and the “death strips” no long have a purpose in life and are being
adopted by civilians. Who can you
trust? What can you believe?
The island, at the end of the road seems like a land
that time forgot, unspoiled because the East Germans had little money except
for the spies and the military.
Ruegen has hidden harbors, beautiful chalk cliffs, meadows, thatched
roof cottages, and “Allee Strasse” where trees arch over the country roads.
Many of the beaches are FKK, Frei Korper Kulture, or nude. There are beautiful but shabby hotels
and casinos. Seamen’s bars where
various nationalities congregate.
Is this a great setting for a book or what?
The main character is Zara Gray, a newly-divorced
mother who wants to quite her high tech job and find something in hometown
Chicago that doesn’t require constant travel. Her greedy employers insist she take one last assignment, to
validate some stolen software in East Germany. The software is a sophisticated data mining system that is
ahead of the curve, even in the West, developed by a New England company and
stolen by the marketing manager.
He has hightailed to East Germany where he thought he would be safe, and
he was... until the Wall came down.
Zara’s sidekick is T.K. Drummond, a man who she had a short relationship
with the previous summer and who has no reason to like her. I’ve assembled an
international cast of miscreants who want to seize opportunities as well as the
software.
Wait a minute!
Harbors! Seashore!
Islands? Where are the
sailboats? There is one, a beauty,
the Zeesboot, a former working boat used for eeling in shallow waters. These gaff-rigged schooners are being
converted to pleasure boats, and Chuck, the larcenous marketing manager has
just had a Zeesboot, The Painted Cow, refurbished. Much of the action takes place on the boat, in good winds,
becalmed seas and fog.
I came to write this book having spent a quick
vacation weekend on Ruegen. When I
got home, the island came with me, until I figured out, “there must be a
book here.” I did a lot of
reading and we returned for a week the following summer for research and
reconnaissance. There was indeed a
book, World of Mirrors.
The title comes from Marcus Wolf, the former East
German spymaster, a paranoid man who didn't trust computers.
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