Book description
The Stasi was among the most sophisticated intelligence organisations
in the world, but by the end of the 1980s the Orwellian state of East
Germany was collapsing round it. The special squads of armed officers,
the torture chambers in the Stasi jail, the hundreds of thousands of
informers could do nothing to prevent the rebellion that saw the fall of
the Berlin Wall. It is in the context of these last few paranoid weeks
of the Communist world, when a population that had been oppressed for
nearly sixty years found the will to rise up, that this outstanding
thriller is set. Its hero is Dr Rudolf Rosenharte, an academic from
Dresden and agent for MI6; his controller is Robert Harland, from A
SPY'S LIFE and EMPIRE STATE. When Rosenharte's security is compromised
he is faced with a stark choice: to defect to the West, leaving his
beloved family to the mercies of the Stasi, or return to East Germany to
carry out a dangerous assignment under the Stasi's suspicious eye...
Henry Porter has written for most national broadsheet newspapers. He
contributes commentary and reportage to the GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, EVENING
STANDARD and SUNDAY TELEGRAPH. He is the British editor of VANITY FAIR,
and lives in London with his wife and two daughters.
