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Book Review: 'To Die in Vienna'

A Spy Thriller That Fails to Thrill

By Monita MohanPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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To Die in Vienna by Kevin Wignall

Who doesn't love a good spy thriller? Looking at the cover of To Die in Vienna, you cannot mistake it for being anything but. Set in the capital city of Austria, Wignall's latest book follows Freddie Makin, a surveillance operative whose life is saved by a migraine.

Freddie had been following math professor—certified genius—Jiang Cheng for around a year, when suddenly he finds his life is at risk. His bosses are convinced he saw something while watching Cheng, but what it is, and why has it cost so many people their lives, is something Freddie needs to find out.

Like most tales of espionage, our protagonist is a lonesome fellow, suffering undiagnosed PTSD after making a bad judgement call in Yemen five years before the events of the book. He frequently dreams of his fallen colleagues and the many poor decisions he made before, during and after the Yemen incident. His life has become a rum-drum excuse for existing, and somehow having these big bads on his tail makes him feel alive. The reader, however, isn't quite as lucky.

The book is atmospheric and vivid; there is no doubt that the central concept lends itself well to a film adaptation. Jake Gyllenhaal is attached to star and produce the adaptation after rights for the book were acquired by Focus Features. The film is likely to be less "Bourne" and more of a slow-burn. The majority of the book takes place in Freddie's mind—his thoughts racing through the present and the past. His interactions with the supporting characters are minimal, and most of it isn't directly relevant to his mission.

His mission is survival: but to get through the book he has to overcome his PTSD and his underdog status to get the better of the villain. First, he has to understand what exactly it is that the shifty agency that recruited him think he saw. The only way he can do that is by meeting the people in Cheng's life. Wignall makes sure that Freddie is in the dark about plenty of the proceedings that have taken place prior to the start of the book. This means lots of exposition and plenty of contrived surprises. The book fails its protagonist by ensuring he's an idiot every step of the way. There's "underdog" and just plain dumb; Freddie Makin is definitely the latter.

Freddie is also incredibly lucky. I think the author was trying to give the character a John McClane vibe—lone gunman taking down an entire unit by his wits and smarts, except Freddie doesn't have either of those. He gets through because the people on the other side are inert and caught unaware. He is either too low a priority for the bad guys to concentrate their firepower on him, or he's incredibly lucky. Probably both, because that's how the author wants it.

[SPOILER ALERT] The climactic face-off proves Freddie's stupidity, but even more than that, he was done for had it not been for one character deciding to save him. Mariana has no personality or arc other than being a sounding board for Freddie and then being used as a red herring during the climax. But, in the end, she's there to save his life, and no one knows why. Freddie was rightfully dead, because he was just too cocky, but Mariana's arrival just sealed the deal on how poorly contrived the entire book was. [END SPOILER]

The author's attempt at humanizing a character like Freddie, one who is not averse to violence, is to make him interact with wistful and beautiful women, all of whom have this innate need to reveal their entire life story to him. He doesn't, thankfully, do a James Bond on us and end up in bed with any or all of them, instead Freddie appears to have a healthy respect for women.

Unfortunately, the author does not. Each woman we meet is beautiful, conventionally so. One has "supermodel bone structure" (direct quote), another is much more beautiful in person, while the third is the most beautiful person that Freddie has ever seen. Even the 60-year-old is gorgeous. It gets pretty silly after the very first such statement. They and their clothes are described in detail, but the author spares us crude descriptions of them, which I suppose we should be thankful for. In contrast, we cannot describe most of the male characters, barring one who is drunk and fat, another who is getting soft around the edges just like Freddie. We do not dwell on what they look like or what they are wearing, unless it is directly relevant to the plot. Who knows if Cheng has wavy black hair, large, soulful eyes and taut legs from all the time on the treadmill; not us, because the author didn't think it necessary to describe Freddie's main quarry seemingly because he was male.

Clunky and lazy language hinder the reading experience further:

"...And then he felt sharply sober as he realized the feed in Cheng's apartment had pinged last night and that, understandably, he'd missed it. It seemed impossible, but could it be that Cheng hadn't been killed, and that he'd come back?Freddie clicked on it, then went over and fetched his coffee. He smiled to himself, remembering now that he'd spent quite a lot of time the previous night thinking about his past hubris and complacency, and while he'd been thinking about those things he's missed a potentially vital development in the present."

Up until that point, Freddie had been ridden with guilt about Cheng's possible death. He was also at his wit's end trying to figure out what he'd seen that had put his life at risk. So, why wouldn't such a tense moment be punctuated by a coffee and reminiscing?

Freddie's culinary habits are the central focus of this book; we spend more time with him waking up in bed after a restless night, eating a detailed breakfast/ meal and ending the day with food and a drink. If the film adaptation is faithful, we will spend a lot of time watching Jake Gyllenhaal eat, sleep and watch footage, because that is what happens in the book.

Expect two hours of this from the film adaptation

Passive language, like the above excerpt, leads to way too much exposition, and that leads to a tedious read. To Die in Vienna isn't much of a page-turner. We never feel "in the moment," which is a sin in any book and especially so in a thriller. Too many pages are spent on Freddie browsing some footage, but instead of emulating the ups and downs of surveillance, such as attentiveness at the start, restlessness partway through and catching snippets during those moments of boredom, the text wanders off into Freddie's thoughts or skims over quickly. There is such a reliance on Freddie's friendship with Eva, the hotel desk clerk, that it makes one wonder where the author's interests lay—did the author want to write a buddy comedy, but was obligated to make it a thriller? Freddie is also written as highly emotional—deeply missing Cheng's presence but it is always written as overwrought sentimentality puncturing any tension that had been built up. For example:

"...He stared in disbelief, thinking not only of the beating he'd given him, but of the explosive collision of body and fast-moving tram, and he felt tears in his eyes and willed this man to stay alive, more than he'd ever willed it of anyone, this man who had been sent to kill him."

Honestly, this is the kind of writing that takes you out of the book, because it is saccharine in its attempt to add depth to a character. There are better ways to write rounded characters, but Wignall doesn't grasp that in this book.

I may have been expecting to read Fleming, le Carré, even Horowitz, but I got none of that from To Die in Vienna. I didn't even get a feel of Vienna, an astounding city that should have popped off the page, especially for someone who has been there. For example, near the end of the book, the author writes about one of the characters:

"Even now, he couldn't believe that he was here, a resident of Vienna, a real resident, part of its cultural fabric."

We are supposed to rejoice at this statement but have not felt the importance or read the beauty of Vienna in the book, so the line falls flat. I mean, Dan Brown brings every city he writes about come alive on page, and he is the exact opposite of a literary writer. Vienna should have been part of the fabric of this book, but is conspicuous in its absence. Also, the character in question never mentioned feeling a sense of belonging to the city, so there's that disconnect as well.

Far too many contrivances, lackadaisical writing and an underwhelming protagonist make To Die in Vienna unmemorable. While it lends itself well to a film adaptation, it isn't a gripping thriller for the ages.

To Die in Vienna, published by Thomas & Mercer, will be out in June 2018.

literature
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About the Creator

Monita Mohan

When not dreaming of a one-way trip to Coruscant, I'm usually staring at a blank page, hoping my articles write themselves.

Website: lightspeedwriter.wordpress.com

Twitter: @Monita_Mohan

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