American Colonel Jake Burnes has a new postwar assignment: to rescue two rocket scientists in occupied Germany. But an infiltration of Russian spies could foil Jake's mission in Berlin Encounter, a novel by author T. Davis Bunn.

On I've rolled with this fourth book in the Rendezvous with Destiny series. Indeed, I not only rolled but basically flew through it.

It's both interesting and pretty heartbreaking, still, to see the dire and precarious aftermath of a world war. Refugees. Hyperinflation. Poverty. The threat of the Nazis now past but Stalin and the Soviets looming like an ominous cloud.

It's good to see that Jake still has room for inner growth as a protagonist, but he's not just facing the same problem time and again, as if he "gets over" something in one book, and then he's totally back to square one in the next. The (continuing) thread of romance is relatively minor but strong here, and though I missed Jake's sidekick, Pierre, for much of the book, it was satisfying to see him eventually appear--and to know he will appear again.

I found the climax of this story to be fairly tame, but that's better than a contrived heightening or overstretching of drama would've been. And, goodness, Churchill's historic declaration about "an iron curtain," along with the last disclosure of this novel, is quite an intriguing setup for the fifth and final book in the series. ( )

Colonel Jake Burns had never imagined himself a spy, but the acclaim he won for rescuing a French Resistance hero and bringing a traitor to justice led to an even more clandestine assignment. He must venture into occupied Germany and secure the safe passage of two rocket scientists to the West. As Stalin's stranglehold on Berlin tightens, Jake goes forward with his mission -- unaware that Russian spies have infiltrated his elite group . . . ( )