Book description
Robert Cope Harland ended his career as a British spy in an Austrian
hospital, after being tortured and beaten by Czech security agents in
the last days of the communist regime. He was young enough then to find
a new life with the Red Cross and then with the UN. Twelve years later
his UN plane crashes in mysterious circumstances at La Guardia airport,
New York and Harland is the only survivor. Was it sabotage, and if so,
was Harland the target? It is soon clear to Harland that the answers are
to be found in his past, a past which, along with its secrets and
tradecraft, he has desperately tried to forget. And now the crash has
thrown him back into a world of relentless intrigue and mistrust, to his
youth, and a life-changing love affair... Henry Porter has written
five novels for Orion and one children's novel. In 2005, his novel
Brandenburg, which is set in East Germany at the time of the Fall of the
Berlin Wall, won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. His thriller Empire
State, the first about extraordinary rendition, was also nominated for
the award. His books have been widely acclaimed and translated into over
a dozen languages. For five years he campaigned against the attack on
civil liberties by the government in the Observer newspaper where he
writes a column. During that time he debated with Tony Blair in a public
exchange of emails about his government's record on surveillance,
databases and the rights of the individual. He has been the London
editor of Vanity Fair since 1993.
