A fascinating look at the development and use of the V2 rockets by the Germans during the Second World War. Highly detailed and informative, the story is from two perspectives: the young German who reluctantly is involved with the V2 and the bombing of London, and an English woman, based in Belgium, who is trying to decipher where the bombs will land and how to prevent the damage and loss of life.

Both of the central characters share the idea that neither of them are comfortable in their surroundings, feeling as though they don't fit in. The German engineer wanted to put a rocket on the moon, not destroy London. The English woman is having an affair with her married senior, which creates added tension and awkwardness, especially as the affair becomes public knowledge. The affair isn't a significant feature as ultimately, this is the story of the V2 with a perfect blend of fact and fiction, with a seamless description of life at that time.

Harris is a great storyteller and it is easy to get caught up in the tale because of his excellent writing style. However, V2 is classed as a thriller, which it isn't, not until the last quarter of the book. A great read for those who are interested in the use and development of the V2.​

To start with a disclaimer – I love Robert Harris! As an author, he always gives such a fantastic sense of the time and place in which his books are set, and this WW2 historical novel is certainly no exception. We follow the experiences of two individuals on opposite sides of the war during the last year of WW2; Rudi Graf, a German engineer working on the Nazi’s V2 ballistics rocket programme, and Kay Caton-Walsh, a British WAAF Officer who becomes involved with the intelligence attempts to thwart this ballistics programme.

I did not have much prior knowledge of V2s before reading the book, so it was fascinating to learn more about the history of Hitler’s last-ditch efforts to turn the tide of war, and the devastating consequences of the V2s being launched. I also enjoyed the inclusion of real figures in the story, since they really anchored the action and historical authenticity.

While the story was compelling, though, I did feel that it wasn’t quite as, well, “thrilling” as other thrillers by the same author. I loved the sections with Kay, but felt that Rudi’s story moved at a rather slower pace, which made it seem a little disjointed. However, overall, I definitely enjoyed reading this one, and would recommend it to any fans of Robert Harris, or anyone interested in this period of history.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Set in the last months of the second world war.- Adolf Hitler has pinned his hopes on the V2 programme helping Germany win WW2 by grinding down the British public and having them live in fear of these ballistic rockets. The speed and the power of these rockets is terrifying for Londoners who are the main target.
Kay Caron-Walsh is serving in the WAAF, becomes an undercover agent and sets out to find the V2 launch sites in Belgium..
Rudi Graf, a German rocket scientist involved in the programme is disillusioned about the part he is playing in killing many people.
When rumours of a traitor/saboteur are rife and Rudi comes under suspicion.
Rudi is on a collision course with Kay and her colleagues.
Robert Harris is one of my favourite writers and V2 did not disappoint. His ability to weave the reality of the time with his characters and storyline is very successful and his level of detail on the rocket programme is second to none.
Enjoyable, though provoking book.

As I had experienced the doodle bugs followed by the V 2 on London during the war, I had a special interest on reading the book. It follows the German engineers and scientists who had ambitions to explore space that Hitler seized upon to develop a ballistic missile; and how a V2 regiment was formed and deployed to launch rockets from well concealed mobile launching pads as a last desperate attempt to win the war. The unsuccessful efforts of the RAF to locate and stop the attack on London by recognisance led to a most interesting and little-known attempt of using a group of WAAFs to track the rockets trajectory to locate their launching sites. Sadly, the tracking method resulted in some near misses that only alarmed the Germans who suffered more from rocket failure accidents than from the RAF. The story of the work of the WAAFs and how the German rocket design and development team were mostly captured and taken to America and helped to put man on the moon is recounted. However; while the story gives a detailed ups and downs of the life and work of the men of the German rocket regiment that rained London with a torrent of V2s in spite of their unreliability; what happens to them is a loose end left undone.

Fantastic. Robert Harris never disappoints.

Loved this intriguing focused book on a short period of time. Reminiscent of Enigma, a fantastic read.

V2 is the compelling story of the rockets used by Germany to bomb Britain near the end of the war in retaliation for the sustained bombing by the RAF. Told from both sides, we follow Graf the engineer who helped develop the bombs fir the Nazis and Kay, an English WAAF officer who's job it was to calculate the launch sites as soon as a rocket was fired. Told against the backdrop of war time Europe, with all the associated tensions, suspicions and deprivation both Kay and Graf are depicted sympathetically as they both, in their own way,seek to work towards the greater good, even in the midst of war.
Well researched and with enough detail to be convincing ,V2 is a welcome addition to Robert Harris's body of work.

Robert Harris is always a fantastic, immersive storyteller who does impeccable research and this was no exception. Short, pithy, fascinating and doubly interesting to me as Claus von Braun, who developed the V2 also shows up to help the US space mission in The Right Stuff, which I’m watching on TV currently.

I've often picked up books by Robert Harris and wondered how he's going to make a story out of this

Fear not - he's got this spot on. A great storyline, strong and realistic characters and just a damn good read

Nothing else needs to be said - just read the book

An enthralling historical thriller set towards the end of World War Two as V2 rockets reign terror on London. Beautifully researched and featuring real characters such as Von Braun who went on to mastermind the USAs space race, it is a quick paced and involving novel. I am a huge fan of Robert Harris and delighted to receive this an an arc from the publisher and netgalley.

I’ve read a number of Robert Harris’s books and they are always well researched and interesting. My only criticism is that it is sometimes difficult to tell fact from fiction- but maybe that’s the sign of a good author. The same is certainly the case in this novel which is about the Nazis‘ development of the V2 rocket bombs and the allies’ attempts to stop them targeting London.
Coming from a family who love anything to do with Space and the Moon Landings as well as having a son who has spent 2 Summers during his PHD working for NASA, I’d heard of the German scientist Von Braun and his part in the American Space race. However when reading Robert Harris’s book I kept checking to find out if his hero Dr Graf existed and if some of the things written about Von Braun were true!
I always found it slightly strange that the US would employ Nazi scientists with no qualms just because they wanted the technological advances after the War, particularly after the destruction these scientists had instigated by developing the rockets.
In this book Robert Harris gives Graf a conscience- he wants to develop space rockets but he doesn’t like creating bombs. I would be surprised if Von Braun felt this way but it seems he had a long and productive life in the US after the War.
The story is told from Graf’s point of view and that of Kay, an English officer who is one of the women who are tasked with tracking the trajectories of the V2s using algebraic methods.
All in all this was a great read and as in other books by this author, I learnt a lot that I didn’t know about the subject.
I whizzed through this in less than 2 days which shows how entertaining it was!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my arc in exchange for an honest review.

Robert Harris is a reliably good author, and this book certainly didn't disappoint. A gripping, engrossing thriller, and a subject I knew very little about made for a compelling read. I would thoroughly recommend this book.

V2 is an excellent historical novel of WW2. V2 rockets caused immeasurable damage to London killing so many people and destroying so much property that over half a million London citizens were made homeless. Here we have the story from both sides of the channel.The scientists who originally invented the rockets as a means of space travel hoping one day to reach the moon until the evil Nazi regime turned them into methods of mass destruction, and the British military desperate to stop the rockets.
The characters are all very well developed, and although fictional it is heartening to know there were real heroes during these dark times. WAAF officer Kate Canton Walsh has personally experienced the destructive power of two of these rockets, she works with other WAAF personnel pouring over photographs taken by the RAF at great risk to try discover the launching sites of the rockets so they can be destroyed. Rudi Graf is the German scientist forced to relinquish his dreams and work for the Nazi’s or face certain death.
A well constructed story that is thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable, I felt well educated at the end of the book without even realising it, if only history had been told like this in school!
My thanks to net galley and publisher for the opportunity to review this book honestly.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book. This review is my own opinion.
I loved this book. I wasn't sure of it when I started, war time stories are not usually my thing, but the author's skill in story telling soon gripped me. It is set in the final period of the war, Winter 1942, the period when the German's developed the deadly V2 rocket.
The story is told from the point of view of Kay who after an affair with a high ranking official joins a unit of women sent to the Netherlands to try to locate the base the rockets are fired from.
The work is top secret and surprisingly is based on mathematical theory.
We hear the voice of the inventor of the rocket with whom surprisingly one is in sympathy.
There is a human side to the story, relationships form. There is description of the cruelty of the Nazis towards the local people. There is distrust and honour and some romance too.
Throughout the story though the wartime descriptions bring the events to life.
Robert Harris wrote this book during the lockdown period in mid 2020. I found it well researched and fascinating and learned much about this period of the war and about the V2 itself.
It's an adventure story, it's a spy story and it's a romance. It has it all.

Rudi Graf had a dream to send a rocket to the moon but has ended up making a weapon of mass destruction. Kay has been plucked from university to aid the RAF in destroying the rockets. Kay is posted to Belgium to help plot the course of the V2 rockets and Graf seems to be bent on sabotage. Meanwhile the Nazi machine is throwing everything at one last chance to avoid defeat.
Generally I enjoy Harris' books but I found this one a little too predictable. There's the obligatory conscience and the obligatory bit of perfunctory sex but I never felt that the story took flight - so to speak

Harris gives factual backdrop to his story, as the two main characters are drawn nearer together by a series of events related the V2 rockets and their launch. 'V2' is a proper page turner, skilfully mixing the real and fictional characters into the plot. Not a 'what if' novel, more a fascinating, and at times harrowing, look into one part of the Second World War.

Robert Harris excels at WW2 thrillers and 'V2' is up there with 'Fatherland' and 'Enigma', a top notch historical thriller.

Full of fascinating historical details and clearly very well researched. I recommended it to my uncle who is a maths teacher as well as a Robert Harris fan. I'll recommend it to customers, but it's definitely not his best work. It seemed like somewhere along the way someone forgot to add a story - the characters were interesting but there was little development, there was no momentum, there was no climax/denouement. It's a shame, but I'm sure I'll still always read his novels.

V2 by Robert Harris

It is November 1944 and V2 rockets rain down on London. They arrive silently, no-one knows where they will hit but when they do the devastation is sudden, terrifying and deadly. Germany is in retreat but now every resource they have, whether slave or fuel, is being put into the production of these rockets, which are then launched from moving sites in occupied Holland on the cities of London and Antwerp. Rudi Graf is a leading German rocket engineer. His dream had been to design and propel rockets to the Moon but his research was hijacked when Hitler came to power. Now he launches rockets to kill civilians, urged on by his Nazi commanders and propagandists. In this cold, bleak seaside town, Rudi becomes increasingly disillusioned.

Kay Calton-Walsh is a young intelligence officer in the WAAF. It is her job to try and detect launch sites from aerial photographs. She’s good at her job and she has also experienced herself the horrors of a V2 strike. When she gets the chance to do even more for the war effort she leaps at it. She joins a team of WAAFs in Belgium. Their task is to observe launches and calculate their origin. The mathematics is difficult, incredibly pressured and the equations must be done quickly. It’s impossible to forget that behind the numbers, lives are at stake and that every second counts.

Robert Harris is one of my very favourite authors. His books vary enormously – ancient Rome, the Vatican conclave, World War 2, an alternate future, 19th century France, and so on – but they are all expertly constructed, ingenious thrillers. The tension and drama can be found in strangely quiet moments, within enormously intelligent individuals who must face a significant challenge, whether that’s an engineer trying to predict the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii or a civil servant’s attempts to broker his own deal at Munich in 1939. These are places with secrets, where much can be underhand, and the stakes are enormous. In Rudi Graf we have another of these figures and he is a fascinating man who has an uneasy relationship with the rocket that he has created as well as with the people around him. He is very alone.

This is a novel in which one side faces off against another, where every act has a consequence. There are some fantastic, coldly horrifying sequences in which we follow a rocket through those four minutes from launch to target. The author takes us outside of the story to tell us how many people each rocket injures and kills. The facts are engrossing but they’re made real by the experiences of Kay Calton-Walsh. She is a busy young woman, liberated by war into being useful, with a role that peace would deny her. She also loves unwisely. But her focus is on stopping these rockets. I loved the chapters set in Belgium. How strange it must have been for the locals to have one army replaced by another in their town. There is tension in the novel from the rockets but it also comes from the relationship between the WAAFs and the local villagers.

V2 is a relatively short novel and we’re told it was written quickly through lockdown. It does have the feel of a novel written with urgency. It is true I would have liked it to have been longer. I would have liked more but what there is, is fantastic. The characterisation is spot on and the locations are richly evoked, especially the launch sites, which were lethal, manned by expendable, tired men, driven on by absurd targets who often became the victims of their own rockets. I’m fascinated by this subject – my grandfather went behind enemy lines to spy on V2 rocket production – and Robert Harris is the perfect writer to convey the dread and terror of these weapons while also respecting the science behind them. It’s an extremely tense thriller – rockets are launched time after time, day after day. They must be stopped.

I can’t wait for the next Robert Harris novel. It could be about anything. It might surprise me as much as The Second Sleep did. Whatever it is, I know I’ll be enthralled. His novel Pompeii remains my favourite historical novel. If you haven’t read it, read it!

Other reviews
An Officer and a Spy
Dictator
Conclave
Munich
The Second Sleep

A thrilling dual narrative of life and death! A great mixture of fact and fiction that really puts you in the moment. I'm going to go back and read more of Harris' wartime novels.

Once again Robert Harris has taken known historical events and turned them into a compelling story. In this instance he's writing about the German V2 programme in the final years of WW2 and the British efforts to destroy the launch sites. I knew nothing about the V2 programme, which involved long range missiles fired at London from the Dutch coast. I didn't even realise that the German had bombs that weren't dropped from planes. So I really enjoyed learning about this part of history as well as the story itself.

As in Munich, Harris alternates chapters between a German and a British character. Dr Rudi Graf is a (fictional) engineer on the V2 project, working alongside many real life individuals. On the other side is Kay Caton-Walsh, working in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and part of the team who are using radar to try to locate the V2 firing sites. I particularly liked Kay's chapters which are tenser and more cinematic - the German chapters included a lot of background information about the V2 and Rudi was a less interesting character.

The book is both immaculately researched and extremely readable. While it's missing the x factor that puts a book into the "can't put it down" category, it's still a fascinating read.

Factual information and storytelling not quite seamlessly satisfying

I have been utterly enthralled by some of Harris’ books, (The Cicero Trilogy, An Officer and A Spy, Fatherland, Enigma) but am also, at times less gripped and engaged. Sadly, this was one of the latter kind.

The research into the technical details of construction of the V2 and rocket programme, and the details of the race against time work to triangulate where the V2s were being fired from unfortunately did not manage to engage me in a suspenseful way. Some other books by Harris, whilst knowing the outcomes, have been extremely suspenseful. I think part of the problem with this one is that somehow the invented characters did not quite flesh out, and some of the dialogue, whilst seeking to indicate character type – notably the darling laden Barbara, seemed drawn from cliché.