University Arms Hotel a focal point in Cold War thriller The Berlin Assignment

Cambridge Independent, By Adrian Peel.

Despite its title, pivotal moments in author Mark Butterworth’s second novel, The Berlin Assignment, are actually set in Cambridge – specifically the .

The drama in this new Cold War thriller, which was published on 28 February, builds at the Regent Street-based hotel and ultimately unfolds at the same location in the book’s final key scene.

As well as the University Arms Hotel, Cambridge Airport also features as a location frequently throughout the story, while research for the book, as far as the aircraft of the period was concerned, was carried out at Imperial War Museum Duxford, further strengthening the Cambridge/Cambridgeshire connection.

“You can tell by the name, The Berlin Assignment, that it’s very much focused on Berlin; it’s John le Carré-style secret agents and Soviet Secret Police,” explains the writer, who served in the British Army and has held a pilot’s licence for 15 years. He has also made more than 50 parachute jumps and has flown a two-seater Spitfire.

“But the plots, if you like, and the operations emanate from Cambridge, and with the University Arms Hotel being the focal point for both the plot development and also the final chapter when it all comes to fruition as the ‘high point’ of the story, in the dining room in the University Arms Hotel.”

Set amid the Cold War, the novel’s main character Adam Devon is a civilian pilot who becomes unwittingly embroiled in an MI6 covert operation to extract a Russian missile scientist from Berlin.

The assignment is led by Val Hetherington-Brown, the head of station in Berlin, but there are traitors in the British establishment passing information to the Russians. As the assignment starts to go wrong, Devon becomes trapped in East Germany.

Born in London and now living in Chelmsford in Essex, Mark Butterworth served in the British Army and also worked in the City of London before becoming a full-time author.

The Berlin Assignment is a sequel to The Pearl River, Mark’s debut novel, “which is about two Spitfire pilots in Singapore and Hong Kong”.

“Then in The Berlin Assignment, they’re back in the UK,” continues Mark, whose father was a pilot. “I used to fly myself and I flew many times from Cambridge Airport, which also features in the book, so my knowledge of Cambridge, I’ve stayed at the University Arms Hotel several times on conferences that I’ve been to in Cambridge when I was working in London, so it all fell nicely into place, with the development of air taxi services and independent airlines after the Second World War.

“That’s why I chose Cambridge as a focal point of interest for readers.

“It [the University Arms Hotel] is a lovely place and I mention Parker’s Piece in the book… Also, Hannah, one of the main protagonists, her parents live in Trumpington, so that’s why she visits Cambridge with her fiancé.

“It all works well in terms of the launch of the rescue mission, or indeed the initial recovery of the Russian missile agent, which is the point of The Berlin Assignment; it’s sort of launched and ends up back in Cambridge Airport.”

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