From the bestselling author of Leaving Berlin and Istanbul Passage comes a thrilling and richly imagined novel about an American defector in Moscow during the Cold War.
'Kanon is fast approaching the complexity and relevance not just of le Carré and Greene but even of Orwell' New York Times
'Sensational! No one writes period fiction with the same style and suspense – not to mention substance – as Joseph Kanon' Scott Turow
'The perfect combination of intrigue and accurate history brought to life' Alan Furst
'Magnificent' Minette Walters
'Joseph Kanon owns this corner of the literary landscape and it's a joy to see him reassert his title with such emphatic authority' Lee Child
Published in hardback by Simon & Schuster on 1 June 2017 at £14.99
Moscow, 1961. Stalin has been dead for eight years. With the launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union's international prestige is at an all-time high.
Former CIA agent Francis ‘Frank’ Weeks, the most notorious of the defectors to the Soviet Union, is about to publish his memoirs, and what he reveals is reportedly going to send shock waves through the West.
Weeks' defection in the early 50s shook Washington to its core – he had been a beloved member of the OSS and then the CIA, one of the bright young men who'd come out of the war ready to take an early lead in the new American century. His betrayal rippled through the State Department, prompting frantic searches for moles and forcing the resignation of Simon, Frank's brother and best friend.
When a Soviet agency approaches Simon, now a publisher in New York City, with a controversial proposition to publish his brother's memoirs, he knows that there's no way the US government will approve the publication of a book clearly intended as propaganda for the KGB. Yet he finds the offer irresistible since it will finally give him the chance to learn why his brother chose to betray his country. But what he discovers in Moscow is far more than he ever imagined...
Joseph Kanon is the Edgar Award–winning author of Leaving Berlin, Istanbul Passage, Stardust, Alibi, The Prodigal Spy, Los Alamos, and The Good German, which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. He lives in New York City. Visit him online at JosephKanon.com / @JosephKanon.
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