A bustle of activity and the ground began falling away. The Deutschland was ascending into the evening sky. Our trip to Berlin had began. We looked out the windows and waved to the people below. Up we floated and then the distant thrumming of the engines began.

Von Neuradt leaned over and said in a subdued voice, “Lady Hurley-Drummond, we are honored to have on the Deutschland the famous swing band “The Templins’ and the very famous singer, Mimi Thoma. They will provide our entertainment tonight. Perhaps you will do me the honor of dancing with me.”

“My dear Herr von Neuradt, I didn’t know the German government endorsed swing.”

“The music of the German people is of course the most edifying of musical idioms, however Der Führer also recognizes the other people of the world may not share the same sentiments. At least not yet.”

You may remember CW Hawes from his excellent post on this blog about airship. He’s a great connoisseur of the subject and definitely airship are often featured in his stories. The first part of The Moscow Affair enfolds during an airship travel and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I even wished that section was longer. It was definitely my favourite part.

This is an alternate world where WWII never happened and in the 1950s the Reich is still firmly in command of large parts of Europe. In Russia, the revolution happened decades earlier, but the descendents of the Tzar are plotting to regain power… and they are doing this with a fierce partisan war. Most of the story concerns this clash of powers, and I found the ‘historical’ setting very interesting and plausible.
In many ways, the story starts out as a spy story, so I was a bit surprised that it ended up revolving mostly around a romance. Bit disappointing for me (because I’m not very big on romances), but still entertaining.

The Moscow Affair is the first novel in the From the Files of Lady Dru Drummond series .

In post is part of the Thursday Quotables meme. If you want to discover more about this meme and maybe take part in it, head over to Bookshelf Fantasies