Europe in Winter

After the near future espionage thriller that was Europe at Midnight, Hutchinson let's his protagonist Rudi, from Europe in Autumn, be the focus of this, the third in the Fractured Europe series. Well, I say focus, but it's more like Rudi pops up at the end of a string of seemingly unconnected vignettes to try and fit together the pieces of a very complex puzzle.

The novel starts in spectacular fashion with two brand new characters and a devastating act of terrorism. And this sets a pattern for the book: new characters are introduced, they get caught up in the web of a vast conspiracy, their lives are turned upside down and Rudi appears to smooth things over. Rupert, from Midnight, also appears, working with Rudi to uncover just what the hell is going on.

Who created The Community, the parallel world mapped over Europe, and why? Who is behind the attacked on the vast railway known as The Line? Why have the super rich been running virtual scenarios in the walled off data facility known as Dresden Neustadt? What was Rudi's late father involved in? And how is it all connected?

This is an exciting, if at times confusing, near future thriller and the revelations at the end of the book open up the world Hutchinson has created and also pull the rug from under Rudi's feet as he realises that everything he thought he knew isn't necessarily true.

If there's one complaint it's that perhaps too many new characters are introduced over the course of the novel and then sidelined. But it's a minor complaint in what is another highly accomplished thriller by Hutchinson. Just have a notebook handy while you read!

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When I finished this book, I was still not sure that I've read the completed novel.

My review of Europe in Autumn argued that that book was not really a novel but the first part of a longer novel. I pointed out that that book decided to bring in a mind-blowing change of direction without wrapping up the loose threads. Normally, I think that kind of thing is dirty pool. We purchase books as books, rather than as parts of books, but I was so taken with Hutchinson's writing and ideas that I decided not to hold it against him.

Well, he's done it again.

And again I like the story enough to not hold it against him.

This may get spoilery. So, if you don't like that kind of thing, don't read beyond this line.

In the immediate predecessor story - Europe at Midnight - we follow “Rupert” as he discovers that he lives in a pocket universe and that there is a bigger universe out there in which Europe is fragmenting into smaller and smaller polities. This made sense because at the end of the first book, the main character of that book, Rudi, had unraveled the secrets of the pocket universe of the Commonwealth adjacent to that of Europe.

In Book 3, Rupert is reduced to walk-on and supporting character status, as we return to following Rudi as Rudi searches for “Courier Central”, which is the legendary central authority of the shadowy organization of smugglers that operates in Europe.

The book opens with a suicide bombing of a tunnel used by the Line - the European-crossing railroad that is also a state. We observe the assassination of Mundt, the former citizen of Dresden who had figured out something about opening breaches in the multiverse. Rudi learns something about his father and a group of French mathematicians who were part of the Versailles Conference in 1919. Rudi gets braced by an agent of the European Community. Characters introduced in prior books - like Seth and Rudi - appear for a moment and walk off stage without contributing much of anything. Pieces of the Community begin to drop into Europe.

I found myself noting the appearance of minor characters who were introduced with the signals and portents that they were going to contribute to the story, who simply disappeared. It appears that this quirk was due to Hutchison introducing them into the story as a reward for their contributions to a charity. That's really nice but made for some confusion and extra work for the reader.

Ultimately, Rudi gets his answers but the reader discovers that there has been a new mysterious player in the game, that his father has had connections with the Community for fifty years, that he is basically Courier Central, that there is a brand new pocket universe under the control of the European Community, and an even more mysterious player in power politics is hinted at.

All in the last twenty pages of the book.

Then the book ends.

Again, this is not really a novel, but the ride is quite enjoyable. I like Hutchinson's characters. I enjoyed seeing Seth and Rupert walk on stage for a turn. I felt as if I was getting information on the structure of this odd reality that Hutchison has invented. I tried to work out the mystery as the plot developed.

Obviously, this story is not over.