Overview

A SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB STAR PICK. West Berlin, October 1979. Helen Abell is a young American, employed by the CIA to oversee a number of safe houses. She arrives in Berlin, expecting excitement and intrigue, and is disappointed to find the city a Cold War backwater. But one night, during a routine house inspection, she stumbles upon two dark but very different secrets. If made public, they could damage the careers of high-ranking people with powerful ambitions. But Helen decides that the price of silence might be costlier still, so she covertly works to reveal the truth even as she risks her career. Maryland, August 2014. In a small farming town, a young man called Willard Shoat gets up one night and shoots his parents while they are sleeping. His sister Anna hires a private investigator to help her understand her brother's motives. As they delve into the events leading up to her parents' deaths, Anna uncovers some startling secrets from her mother's past... 'An intelligent novel with psychology foregrounded... But can also raise readers' pulses' GUARDIAN.

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9781788547871

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Reviews

'The narrative choreography demanded by Fesperman's split timelines is expertly handled, and the dilemma faced by Helen [...] illustrates the kind of weight that the spy novel, in the right hands, is capable of bearing' New York Times. 'A terrific book combining the gripping immediacy of a present-day murder mystery with the high-stakes sexy intrigue of a Cold War espionage thriller' Chris Pavone, bestselling author of The Expats. 'Expertly handled ... Illustrates the kind of weight that the spy novel, in the right hands, is capable of bearing' Mick Herron. 'Prolific spy novelist Fesperman delivers another winner, this one as fiendishly clever as it is richly entertaining' Kirkus Reviews. 'Fesperman raises the bar sky-high with this one. Smart, sophisticated, suspenseful, and intensely human. One of the great espionage novels of our time' Lee Child.

'A terrific book combining the gripping immediacy of a present-day murder mystery with the high-stakes sexy intrigue of a Cold War espionage thriller' Chris Pavone, bestselling author of The Expats. 'Prolific spy novelist Fesperman delivers another winner, this one as fiendishly clever as it is richly entertaining' Kirkus Reviews.

'The narrative choreography demanded by Fesperman's split timelines is expertly handled, and the dilemma faced by Helen [...] illustrates the kind of weight that the spy novel, in the right hands, is capable of bearing' New York Times. 'A terrific book combining the gripping immediacy of a present-day murder mystery with the high-stakes sexy intrigue of a Cold War espionage thriller' Chris Pavone, bestselling author of The Expats. 'Prolific spy novelist Fesperman delivers another winner, this one as fiendishly clever as it is richly entertaining' Kirkus Reviews. 'Fesperman raises the bar sky-high with this one. Smart, sophisticated, suspenseful, and intensely human. One of the great espionage novels of our time' Lee Child.

'A terrific book combining the gripping immediacy of a present-day murder mystery with the high-stakes sexy intrigue of a Cold War espionage thriller' Chris Pavone, bestselling author of The Expats. 'Prolific spy novelist Fesperman delivers another winner, this one as fiendishly clever as it is richly entertaining' Kirkus Reviews. 'Fesperman raises the bar sky-high with this one. Smart, sophisticated, suspenseful, and intensely human. One of the great espionage novels of our time' Lee Child.

'[An] unforgettable spy thriller ... [Fesperman's] research is brilliant and with certain true facts pointed out in an afterthought he makes the reader question the role and worth of espionage' Yorkshire Gazette Herald. 'A cracking piece of spy fiction - only to be expected from one of the best American exponents of the genre' Shots Magazine. 'Dan Fesperman deserves to be better known to British readers' The Times. 'Intelligent novel with psychology foregrounded ... But can also raise readers' pulses' Guardian. 'The narrative choreography demanded by Fesperman's split timelines is expertly handled, and the dilemma faced by Helen [...] illustrates the kind of weight that the spy novel, in the right hands, is capable of bearing' New York Times. 'A terrific book combining the gripping immediacy of a present-day murder mystery with the high-stakes sexy intrigue of a Cold War espionage thriller' Chris Pavone, bestselling author of The Expats. 'Expertly handled ... Illustrates the kind of weight that the spy novel, in the right hands, is capable of bearing' Mick Herron. 'Prolific spy novelist Fesperman delivers another winner, this one as fiendishly clever as it is richly entertaining' Kirkus Reviews. 'Fesperman raises the bar sky-high with this one. Smart, sophisticated, suspenseful, and intensely human. One of the great espionage novels of our time' Lee Child.

Author Information

A former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, Dan Fesperman is now an award-winning author, whose thriller novels have won the John Creasey and the Ian Fleming Steel Daggers as well as the Hammett Prize. His plots were inspired by his own international assignments in Germany, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and their two children.

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