1961 - Sliding Toward Armegeddon

MWSA Review

Anyone who is familiar with the Berlin of today knows the storied history of the place -- especially it's role in the post World War II war more commonly known as the "Cold" one. You can explore the graffitee covered ruins of the "Wall" separating East Berlin from West Berlin -- which, depending on your viewpoint also separated the good guys from the bad guys. You might alsio visit the famed "Checkpoint Charlie" crossing point between the two sides of the city -- and the two sides of Germany.

Author Don Faranacci has blended two genres in 1961 -- Sliding Toward Armegeddon -- Historical Fiction and Mystery/Thriller. For those of us who were born after World War II and came to age in the late 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was seared into our memories as we cowered in "bomb" shelters expecting the big one. Still for many of us as adults, our knowledge of the build up to this event is limited to Kruschev's shoe, Gary Powers' and his U2, a blockade, a letter that Kennedy pretended he never got -- and confrontation where the other "side" blinked.

However, the year before -- 1961 -- was a year of intrigue. The Russians who occupied the East became concerned with the number of East German citizens who were fleeing to the West -- and the relationship between Russia and the US -- always complicated -- became hostile. Russian Premier Kruschev challenged the resolve of the new and young US President Kennedy on every level. This was the year the Wall was built -- and the year of the stand off between Russian and US Tanks at Check Point Charlie.

Faranacci's novel presents these events in a much richer context -- blending fact and fiction so artfully that the reader must spend time on Wikapedia and other Cliff's Notes Style sites trying to determine what did and didn't happen. It's clear the author put an enormous amount of research into this tale -- and an equal amount of thought. His story will challenge your memories -- of the event, the historical philosophies of the players. It will also tweak your understandings of what might have been.

Reviewed by: Joyce Faulkner (2013)

Author's Summary

Information provided by the author. ‘When the lamb opened the first seal, I heard the first living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest...’
In April of 1961, a pair of covert CIA operatives interrupt a dead drop in Tehran, and make away with information intended for the Soviet Union’s international network of spies. The contents of the intercepted package are strange. Four envelopes with elaborate wax seals, enclosing four cryptic passages from the Bible’s book of Revelation.
The members of a U.S. Army Intelligence team in Munich are convinced that the biblical references are the signal for a major Soviet offensive against the United States. As President John F. Kennedy trades threats and political jabs with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, U.S. intelligence agents play a lethal game of cat and mouse with the KGB.
At stake are the future of West Berlin, and—quite possibly—the continued existence of the human race. The world’s nuclear superpowers are rushing toward what may be their final confrontation.
The countdown to Armageddon is on…