Review by Frank Plowright
With the Nazis defeated in Europe, US conscript Ben Sullivan is on his way to the Pacific in 1945 to take on the Japanese forces. Along the route he considers how after the war he was to be reunited with his fiance, that is until he was notified that she’d died in Germany where she’d been an undercover agent for the OSS, forerunner to the current CIA. Except as is soon revealed, Katherine’s not dead, but as Katrin Schulz still undercover on a German submarine making its way to a secret Antarctic base.
The symbolism of both lead characters being at sea without the other is an early indication of the thought Christofer Emgård has given to The Secret Land. The precise time during 1945 is also important, as the atomic bomb isn’t common knowledge, so the threat of a hidden base where the Nazis continue to develop weapons is invested with terror. Yet Emgård humanises that terror. There’s an irredeemable Nazi villain, but others Katherine associates with in the secret base are cheerful and friendly, and it’s quite the shock when they suddenly come out with some hateful statement.
Although there are strange elements, The Secret Land is very much grounded in the 1940s, and what begins as primarily a spy thriller requires largely naturalistic art from Tomás Aira, ensuring the people are real. He also places them in convincing locations, making good use of the Antarctic setting and conveys the creeping terror of something being irreparably wrong.
That fully manifests halfway through. Emgård creates a mystique around the German super weapon being developed without ever explaining the intended use in anything other than the broadest terms. With Aira’s suitably vague illustration of the technology it’s enough to suggest the threat while never defining it.
Spy thriller, action thriller, romance, horror, period drama… The Secret Land covers multiple genres and succeeds in providing the essence of them all starting with the yearning of romance and ending with a near apocalypse. It’s extremely well crafted and ticks every box. Now what else have Emgård and Aira produced?
