In 1961, when she was just a baby, Luisa's mother tossed her over the newly erected barbed wire barrier in Berlin, where Luisa's grandfather caught her. Luisa's mom hoped she'd be able to soon follow her daughter into West Berlin, but unfortunately that never happened, and Luisa grew up believing that her parents died in a car accident that left her in her grandparents' care.
In 1989, Luisa is now a naturalized U.S. citizen and she's working for the CIA as a codebreaker, using some of the skills that her grandfather taught her as a child. But when a packet of letters with a familiar mark on them appears in her office, Luisa must confront the idea that everything she thought she knew about her family is wrong.
Hopping back and forth between Luisa's life in 1989 and her father's life in the 1960s and 70s, The Berlin Letters explores the Cold War through the lens of those who were trapped in East Berlin and cut off from their families, while simultaneously exploring the secretive ways that information was leaked out from behind the Iron Curtain. This was a fast-paced and interesting tale, and it makes me want to learn more about ciphers and the 1980s East Berlin punk scene and everything in between. An excellent and approachable historical fiction novel.
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