The Phoenix

For all those who love novels like Fatherland by Robert Harris, The Phoenix – a brilliant thriller based on the inside story of the airship disaster – is a great find.

Airships were the Concordes of their era – elegant, exciting, luxurious – and the Hindenburg was Germany’s pride. When it mysteriously exploded on arrival in the US in 1936 Goering pronounced the disaster an ‘accident’. However, whispers soon circulated that it was sabotage. But by whom and why? And why were 28 of the survivors declared dead by the Nazi authorities?

Birger Lund is one of them. Horrifically burnt in the flames, he is unrecognisable even to himself, but like the phoenix from the ashes, he arises from the dead with a new face and a new identity. However he realises he cannot embrace his future without confronting his past. So, briefly reunited with the girl he fell in love with ten years before on the Hindenburg’s last voyage, he treks across post-war Germany in search of the truth about the crash. His journey leads him to a remote island off the north coast of Germany – to the home of the last pilot on the Hindenburg. However, the islanders appear to have not accepted the end of the war, and are determined to protect – with violence, if necessary – any secrets the pilot may have…

The author is himself the son of one of the officers on the Hindenburg.