WW2 holds a special place in the eyes of 21st century audiences, mostly for the West. For the US it represents one of the few wars they went into for (almost) completely honourable purposes. Though most Hollywood films tend to ignore how they ended it. Administering more than the recommended number of nukes on a country in order to show off does not do much for one’s image in civilised circles. The UK shares a similar fixation on it, since the period is a unique example in history where the British Empire looks good in comparison to something it was fighting, and it all gets to be framed in a nice underdog story.

Behind all of this, I still find the period fascinating. There are so many little stories behind the grand narrative of a world-spanning war that I feel the genre is never really going to die out. Robert Harris, for example, seems intent on keeping it alive all by himself. He has written a good number of WW2 books amongst the ranks of his other historical fiction, putting a noticeable amount of effort to maintain historical accuracy and attention to detail. Even his first novel Fatherland, about an alternate timeline in which Hitler won the war set in Europe, this dedication is evident in the Nazi sympathisers that are in power in the rest of the world; King Edward VIII in the UK and Joseph P. Kennedy in the States.

This brings us finally to V2. Harris’ latest novel tells the story of Germany’s last ditch effort to win the war by hurtling as many rockets as they can at London (now we see where the US learned it), while Britain nerdily retaliates by using maths to find out where they are throwing them from. It follows two people: Jay Caton-Walsh, part of the all female regiment sent to trace the bombs, and Rudi Graf, a German engineer working on the rockets who has an understandable lack of conviction for his job and for life in general.

If historical details are what you like, then this is a novel for you. It appears to be extensively researched and fact-checked, providing many details on what it was like to be in both the British and German army and how V2 rockets function. This all serves the story well and makes for engaging reading, but it is not personally what I enjoy in a book. It is lovely and it made me really feel as though I had learned something valuable from the experience, but I cannot recall many details about human moments in the plot that drew me in.

The characters were all perfectly likable. Jay is surprisingly perky for someone who starts the book by getting bombed twice in the same afternoon, and Graf earns oodles of sympathy for being a brilliant and honest man trapped in performing a pointless vengeance mission for the loosing side of a war. Yet there are not many solid interactions that made me have an emotional response. The book heartily entertained my brain by making me realise how pointless the whole V2 program was and how Germany could have done better by using the potatoes that go into rocket fuel to make food for its starving populace, but my heart was unmoved by most of it.

There are some attempts at heart-string tugging. Graf tries to get a prostitute out of the vicinity before she is killed for being a spy and Kay’s whole reason for going to fight the Germans was to get away from her boyfriend who sees her as merely an inconvenient truth for his wife. There is even an attempt at romance between our two principle characters in the final pages, but like most it feels more forced than PR reviewed public apology.

The technical brilliance is there though and it the book is worth your time for that alone. V2 is a fascinating read and if it had just a touch more heart, I would probably say I loved it.