The Berlin Assignment is set in the turbulent 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What De Hook achieves in his novel is not unlike, say Graham Greene's excellent tale in No Man's Land. He manages to capture the atmosphere of the place to perfection. Even though the Wall came down after it had dominated Berlin for 28 years, its effects still linger even today, and did more so at the time in which de Hoog has set his novel. By capturing the city's atmosphere, which then was undoubtedly the sleaziest major city in Europe, and now as Germany's capital, is that continent's sleaziest capital, Moscow excluded, he is able to replicate the personal tensions that exist between the eastern and western sections of Berlin.

Berlin, which dominated the world stage in the 20^th century, has a strange history as a city. When London, Paris and Rome were already ancient places filled with a varied history and many cultural institutions, Berlin was a mere hovel. It was first mentioned in documents in the 13^th century. In 1415 Berlin and its sister town across the Spree, Cölln, became the joint capital of Brandenburg, but it remained a town. In 1600 a mere 12,000 residents inhabited this town and by the end of the 30 Years' War, only about 7,000 remained. By that time Cölln's most famous citizen had been one Hans or Johannes Kohlhase, who in the early 16^th century turned into an outlaw because he had been denied justice. In 1810 he would become the model for Heinrich von Kleist's famous novel, Michael Kohlhaas, in 1975 the model for E. L. Doctorow's novel, Ragtime, and then in 1999 the TV film, The Jack Bull.

In 1709 Berlin-Cölln was made a city by Frederick I, King of Prussia and the name Cölln slipped away. He inherited as his capital a fairly cosmopolitan population that had been augmented by his forebears with a large group of Jews, and various Protestant groups—including Huguenots from France—whom they invited to settle there. By becoming the capital of Prussia, Berlin took on a new role. When Frederick the Great died in 1786, Berlin had grown to 150,000 inhabitants and by 1870, just before the unification of all the German states, excluding Austria, it had 800,000 residents. Still, it did not yet attract the great international minds as places like London, Paris or even Vienna did. With the arrival of the Kaisers, surrounding towns were incorporated, a further building boom began, and if World War I had not intervened it might have rivaled those cities. By the end of that war it had 3,850,000 residents.

A cultural ferment began after WWI that attracted a very different kind of artists and writers than London or Paris. Their tone was dark, reflecting the mood of a nation that never quite managed to reach the top, and now had lost a major war. Berlin, more than Paris, London or Rome, became the place where the extreme bourgeoisie clashed with extreme libertines. Then Hitler arrived and another building boom took place, although none of his buildings achieved architectural greatness. The intellectuals that had come to Berlin were either forced to leave, or left on their own, creating a brain drain that to this day has not been reversed. A decline in population began, acerbated by the loss of WWII and the division of the city into East and West. After the fall of the Wall in 1989, the population again began to rise, especially after unification of East and West Germany into one state, and Berlin was once again chosen as the capital of Germany. Many of the new residents arrived from eastern countries once dominated by Communism and a distinctly seedy atmosphere prevailed in many areas. A giant building boom ensued to make room for not just the bureaucrats and politicians to move in, but also to allow industry and commerce to build headquarters. Berlin's latest census figures place the urban population of the city at 3,675,000, slightly less than that of Toronto. But Berlin, despite the rapid growth, was broke in 2006. It once again attracts artists and thinkers, but they are those on the sidelines, and once again, they appear to be shaped by the darker atmosphere of the city. And by the grayness of the sky for most of the year. Berlin, no matter how hard it tries to get away from its natural dourness, is a gray city.

When de Hook's The Berlin Assignment begins, Berlin was not yet the capital of the newly united Germany. The protagonist of the tale is the Canadian consul general, Anthony Hanbury. He has been sent to that city, although his actually role is that of the consul to eastern part of Germany. As he is briefed in Ottawa, "Our real interests with Germany are pursued elsewhere."

Hanbury had spent two years in Berlin as a student in the early 1960s, and on his return there tries to make contact with some of his former friends, even an ex-lover, who by now has married another man. His staff at the consulate is headed by Earl Gifford, the administrator, a Brit who had chosen to stay in Berlin after his term was up with the British consulate. Hanbury's chauffeur is Sturm, who is a typical Berliner, loquacious, with a biting sense of humor not unlike London's Cockneys, and three local women employees, " . . . . three ladies, thorough women of the kind that once made Prussia great . . . ."

Soon we see the unassuming Hanbury drawn into the social whirl of Berlin while Gifford runs the office. But Gifford also has other interests which we won't reveal here. Let it be said he manages to dupe the consul exceedingly well. Hanbury's German contacts eventually also lead the unsuspecting consul into the murky waters of East/West relations that includes his spending much time looking at old Stasi files. A new woman arrives in his life, a German journalist who writes a column about how bad the Ossies (East Germans) have it in the new Germany. And then there are the spooks who seem to plot and prod without Hanbury ever catching on.

The author also gives us a cheeky look at Ottawa's bureaucratic structure and hierarchy, a glimpse of people who need to justify their existence within this structure, people who wheel and deal in a bureaucratic roulette that can make or break someone's diplomatic career.

And finally, we get a look at Berlin from all sorts of angles, and a close-up of not just Berliners, but German nature. In one conversation we find Hanbury questioning the German justice system. "No one called to account . . . . " Hanbury said. "It's not something we are traditionally good at," came the reply from a friend, Berlin's chief of protocol, Gerhard von Helmholtz. The conversation comes toward the end of the book when Hanbury is on the way out of Berlin and on his way to a new assignment on a different continent. It sums up much of what is wrong with Berlin and good about this story. De Hoog has revealed much more in his book than he might have wanted to, given that he is a diplomat by profession and, one feels, by nature.