It is truly an odd thing to watch your own burial.
Mr. Einstein's Secretary is a 2023 Historical Fiction Thriller novel written by Matthew Reilly. The novel follows approximately thirty years in the life of Hanna Fischer, a German-American girl born in Berlin, gifted at physics, who grew up as the next-door neighbour to the legendary physicist Albert Einstein. The story follows Hanna's childhood before, during and after World War I, her flight to America following a family tragedy, and her years working as a secretary to many famous (and infamous) figures of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, including a shrewd New York businessman and his son leading up to The Great Depression, Einstein himself, and eventually - as a Deep Cover Agent for the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the CIA) - for highly-ranked Nazi Party figures such as Albert Speer and Martin Bormann before and during World War II.
Throughout the course of her life, Hanna is shown to be present at many historical events, and her later work with the Nazis helps to give the Allies the intel they need to help turn the war effort around, even if she isn't aware of it. Of course, as she comes to learn, while being a humble secretary may make you invisible to figures of power, it doesn't make you invulnerable to danger...
Mr. Einstein's Secretary contains examples of:
- Anachronic Order: The novel begins in 1947 with Hanna narrating from her own funeral, before flashing back to her as a child in 1912. As the story progresses, there are many Flash Forwards that pop up, mostly centred on places Hanna visits in the past, before showing her there again years later in a far darker context (mostly during World War II). Interspersed throughout are snippets of three interrogations that Hanna endures throughout her life, giving background to the era the next portion of the story covers.
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: One of the cops at Hanna's arrest, believing her to be a German spy, responds with one of these when she tries to explain that she works for Einstein.Cop: If you know Albert Einstein, then I’m having dinner tonight with Franklin Roosevelt.
- Anti Climax Cut: Two thirds of the way through the novel, after Hanna has been in deep cover with the Nazis for a few years, the Gestapo suddenly shows up at her office and arrests her and another secretary on suspicions of being a spy (and leading to the second interrogation shown throughout the novel). The chapter ends with the horrifying fear that Hanna has been discovered... only for the start of the next chapter to immediately reveal that the other secretary was the spy they were after, allowing Hanna to be released unharmed.
- Assassination Attempt: Hanna manages to save Einstein from one early in the novel.
- Asshole Victim: Clay Bentley Jr. finds himself on the receiving end of a pair of concrete shoes after losing most of Baby Face Mancino's money in the stock market crash. Given his behaviour and attitude throughout the novel, nobody really feels very bad about this. Hell, he's such a jerk that when Hanna tries to bargain with Baby Face to spare Clay, Stella and his son, and Baby Face refuses, she unhesitatingly asks him to instead just kill Clay and leave the family alone, to which the gangster agrees.
- Badass Bookworm: Played with when it comes to Hanna. While she's definitely brilliant and possessed of a keen intelligence, she's also not a fighter in any way. Despite this, her inherent sense of right and wrong sees her throwing herself into harm's way to save others without any hesitation, be they people she cares about, like Einstein and Kessler, or even those she actively dislikes, such as Stella and Svetlana Sarkovsky, the latter of whom actually repays the favour in kind when Hanna is captured by the Russians.
- Been There, Shaped History: Downplayed. Hanna meets many real-life historical figures, and is present for many famous historical events (such as the Solvay Conference and the 1936 Olympics in Berlin), but as befits her station as a secretary, doesn't really have anything meaningful to do with them in a way that could be interpreted as "historic". Her only two real contributions to what could be considered "history" - saving Einstein from Nazi assassins and giving Kessler the intel for the location of Speer's V-2 rocket factory in Helfaut, France - are more smaller-scale events that are largely brushed under the rug.
- Death Faked for You: The most unexpectedly fortuitous consequence of Ooma stealing Hanna's identity is that - after Dan kills her in Berlin - it allows the O.S.S. to declare Hanna dead and send her into hiding for her own protection.
- Deep Cover Agent: Dan Kessler becomes one in Germany due to his German heritage, and spends a large portion of the story passing himself off as an SS officer. He recruits Hanna to become one as well, allowing her to utilise her secretarial background in order to infiltrate the Nazi Party, becoming secretary to high-ranking member Albert Speer while reporting on the Party's movements and plans to Kessler.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Although a lesser degree of "evil", Svetlana Sarkovsky is still a ruthless, manipulative killer who has no compunctions about murdering anyone her superiors tell her to. Despite this, she leaves Hanna unharmed after killing Alexei Zilberman, and later saves Hanna and Kessler's lives from the Russian army, repaying Hanna saving her after the tavern bombing.
- Baby Face Mancino may be a ruthless gangster and murderer, but he's willing to spare Hanna and Kessler after they save his newborn son from a rival gang.
- Evil Twin: Ooma. It's established early on that she suffers from some kind of mental illness (implied to possibly be bipolar disorder) and has been hospitalised for most of her life, but she still seems like a good-hearted, if troubled, young woman. All of that goes out the window after Hanna is forced to flee Germany in the wake of their father's murder; when Hanna returns home, she discovers that Ooma has completely assumed her identity and married Lukas, Hanna's childhood boyfriend. Even worse, she's utterly unrepentant upon being exposed. When they meet again years later, while Hanna is working as Bormann's secretary, Ooma, now locked up in a German prison awaiting being sent to a Death Camp, then pulls the exact same ploy, knocking Hanna out with chloroform and switching places with her, despite fully knowing that doing so will most likely result in Hanna's death. She even tries to convince Kessler to shoot Hanna by claiming that Hanna is her when confronted by the two of them together, and likely would have succeeded if not for Dan's quick thinking in asking a physics question that linked back to an earlier conversation he had had with the real Hanna.
- Femme Fatale Spy: Svetlana Sarkovsky, in practically every way that counts.
- Gold Digger: Stella, whose entire motivation for going through the Graham-Coulson Secretarial School is to become the secretary to a wealthy man, so that she can worm her way into his pants and have him marry her, thus giving her the life of luxury she desires. She actually succeeds with Clay Bentley Jr... that is, until the Great Depression hits, and she finds herself losing it all.
- Historical Domain Character: Many of them, mostly either the greatest scientific minds of the early 20th century (such as Einstein, Marie Curie, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg) or the upper echelons of the Nazi Party, including Albert Speer, Martin Bormann, Reinhard Heydrich and even Hitler himself.
- Honey Trap: Apparently Svetlana's speciality; even the agents who work under her are trained to be this, if her comments to Hanna later in the novel are to be believed.
- Identical Twin Mistake: Invoked by Ooma, who, having stolen Hanna's identity, tries to get Kessler to shoot Hanna when he accidentally encounters both sisters at the same time. Thankfully, he manages to come up with a quick solution.
- In Medias Res: The novel opens with Hanna narrating the events of her own funeral, with only Einstein and a couple of others present, suggesting Hanna died as a nobody and her spirit is wistfully remembering her life. By the end, we find out that she's actually very much alive, and the funeral's attendance is swelled by the arrival of a whole bunch of other characters from later in the story, revealing that, to the world at large, Hanna actually died as an accomplished secret agent and hero.
- Irony: Twice Ooma steals Hanna's identity out of jealousy for her sister's more stable life. This comes back to bite her hard, as not only is she killed in the end, she officially dies as Hanna, allowing her sister to escape and start a whole new life - Ooma's reasoning for wanting to steal Hanna's identity in the first place.
- Karma Houdini: Svetlana Sarkovsky, despite being a ruthless Russian spy and assassin who throws a spanner in the works of the Allied plans more than once, not only gets away with her actions, she actually ends up saving Hanna and Kessler's lives when the war ends after Hanna - who was known only to the Russians as a devoted Nazi secretary (a role that would have most likely gotten her shot) and Kessler (disguised as an SS officer, which would have definitely gotten him shot) - are captured by the Red Army when they invade Berlin.
- Out-Gambitted: Russia manages to do this to the U.S. twice, both times using Svetlana as their principal to do so. The first time, she manages to kill Alexei Zilberman to stop him from defecting; the second, she kills the two Russian engineer brothers at the Berlin Olympics so that nobody else can utilise their skills. The second time is actually an accidental out-gambitting of the Americans, as when she killed them, it was the Nazis - using literally the exact same plan Hanna had come up with to get them to the Americans - who had gotten to them first in order to spirit them away.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Hanna and Ooma to a T. Where Hanna is quite shy, studious and approaches situations with a general level of caution, Ooma is carefree, impulsive, bored by education and acts on a whim regardless of consequences. The difference is emphasised the most by their respective approaches to sex, with Ooma being willfully promiscuous and Hanna (as far as we know) essentially remaining a virgin throughout the course of the story.
- The Roaring '20s: Hanna's secretarial education takes place during these years, and she's able to see all the glitz and excess of the decade up close.
- Secondary Character Title: Played with. While Einstein is indeed an important supporting character for much of the book, the time Hanna actually spends as his secretary is only quite brief, with more of the story's focus being both on the events leading up to her becoming Einstein's secretary, and then the events after. Indeed, it's the after - when she goes to work as a Deep Cover Agent and becomes a secretary to the Nazis - that actually plays a much more important part of her story.
- Spotting the Thread: Hanna realises, moments after the murder of Alexei Zilberman, that the woman she knows as "Brigette" - in reality, Russian agent Svetlana Sarkovsky - is actually a spy and assassin due to the fact that her perfectly coiffed blonde hair is always perfectly coiffed in exactly the same way, making her realise that it's actually a wig.
- Terms of Endangerment: Svetlana refers to Hanna as "Californian Poppy", after the distinctive perfume that Hanna wears.
- Tragic Keepsake: Hanna wears two: a silver bracelet given to her by her father, and the same brand of perfume always worn by her mother. The latter's distinctive smell actually causes her a little bit of trouble later, as Svetlana Sarkovsky remembers it from their first proper meeting and is twice able to figure out that Hanna is around by the scent alone.
