From master of suspense Joseph Kanon, author of the bestsellers Istanbul Passage and Leaving Berlin, an espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is swapped by the British for some German students and returns to East Berlin needing to know who arranged his release and what they want from him.

'A modern master at work’ THE TIMES
‘Heart-poundingly suspenseful’ WASHINGTON POST
‘Joseph Kanon owns this corner of the literary landscape’ LEE CHILD

Berlin, 1963. The height of the Cold War and an early morning spy swap. On one side of the trade: Martin Keller, an American physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller's most critical possession: his American passport. His most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

But Martin has questions: who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? Just the KGB bringing home one of its agents? Or, as he hopes, a more personal intervention? He has worked for the service long enough to know that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics – his expertise is years out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

From the master of suspense, this is an exhilarating return to Joseph Kanon’s heartland, the perilous backdrop of Berlin, now at the height of the Cold War.


PRAISE FOR JOSEPH KANON: 

'An enjoyable blend of atmospherics, doomed love story and Cold War derring-do' Sunday Times

'Thoroughly absorbing, a thoughtful and subtle evocation of a place and era' Sunday Telegraph

'Kanon is fast approaching the complexity and relevance not just of le Carré and Greene but even of Orwell' New York Times

'Joseph Kanon continues to demonstrate that he is up there with the very best . . . of spy thriller writers . . . Kanon writes beautifully, superbly' The Times

'The critical stock of Joseph Kanon is high' Guardian