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Robert Harris's new historical novel Munich takes him back to the subject which brought him to fame over 25 years earlier - Nazi Germany, in which he set his bestselling debut Fatherland. However, whereas Fatherland was an entertaining thriller set in an alternative world where the Axis powers won the war, Munich is set before the war even happens - and is far less thrilling and engaging.

In the author describes his fascination with the subject of the book, the infamous Munich Agreement of 1938, where the representatives of Italy, Great Britain and France agreed to German territorial demands in order to avoid war, at the expense of Czechoslovakia - whose representatives were not invited to the talks. Praised by the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain as "peace for our time", the agreement failed to provide exactly that: Hitler never intended to honor it, and after annexing Czech territory he eventually invaded and occupied the entire country. Less than a year after signing the agreement the German army invaded Poland, beginning what would eventually become World War 2.

Because the book centers around real, historical events, most of characters featured in Harris's novel are real historical figures. Although the author inserts appropriate fictional characters to develop a dramatic plot - negotiations can only take us so far - these fictional creations aren't as memorable or interesting as his depictions of real people. His imagined ones - an English and German diplomat, whose interactions with the world around them comprise much of the book - have been provided with plenty of background, but just didn't catch my attention; they really don't stand out in any way. Perhaps that was the author's intent; to present two ordinary people (if by ordinary we can call Oxford-educated men rubbing shoulders with rulers of the world) whose actions can make a difference? However, for me the most interesting character in the book was prime minister Chamberlain, today almost entirely remembered for appeasing a dictator and giving in to his demand. Harris's portrayal of Chamberlain is very sympathetic, although not rose-tinted: he presents him as he was: a conflicted, well-meaning statesman who remembers the horror of the Great War, and is struggling to secure peace and having to make hard moral and ethical choices in order to avoid a terrible conflict for which his nation was woefully unprepared.

Harris clearly enjoyed researching the time and period, as the novel is full of atmospheric descriptions which make his locations come alive in detail - however, his plot is where the book unfortunately falters. Since we are dealing with a historical events whose outcome is not changed, there is often preciously little a writer can do with these events - in this case, invent a conspiracy which aims to stop the agreement from being signed. In the interview mentioned earlier, Harris talks about The Day of the Jackal as being the most successful post-war thriller based on real events (in that case the assassination attempt on Charles De Gaulle). However, I don't think the comparison is fair - Frederick Forsyth invented an elaborate, tense and engaging conspiracy to kill the French president, compared to which Harris's plot simply doesn't measure up. There is very little of what could be described as action in the book, whereas Forsyth's novel captures the reader's attention from the first page to the last.

In a crucial moment of the book, (view spoiler)[ Chamberlain produces a special document obliging Hitler to respect his word on peace, and makes him sign it. He is fully conscious that Hitler will not keep his word, but apparently is okay with that because by then the entire world will see that the dictator is "bad" and will join the fight against him. I couldn't help but find this point of the book particularly silly, as I'm pretty sure that the entire world would see an aggressive war of conquest as bad perfectly well on its own, without broken promises. (hide spoiler)]

This isn't a terrible book, but is not astonishing either; I can see its appeal for those who know very little about the Munich Agreement and want to learn about it. However, despite interesting history, it lacks suspense and creativity of his previous novels which I really liked; it is simply unexciting and passable at best. I gave it an extra start because of my sympathy for its author, and hope that the next novel of his that I will read will be on the level of my favorite of his works, Archangel.