Brandenburg Gate - Hardcover

Porter, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871139405 ISBN 13: 9780871139405

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006

Synopsis

In this brilliant, multilayered, espionage thriller, the 2005 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award winner Henry Porter captures the tense final moments before the fall of the Berlin Wall. September 1989. The Communist government in East Germany is on the brink of collapse. Even the Stasi, one of the most formidable intelligence agencies of all time, can’t stop the rebellion that ends in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dr. Rudi Rosenharte, formerly a Stasi foreign agent, is sent to Trieste to rendezvous with his old lover and agent, Annalise Schering, who the Stasi believe Annalise has vital intelligence. The problem: Rudi knows she’s dead. He saw her lying in her own bloodied bathwater, and then kept her suicide a secret. As collateral for this mission, the Stasi have imprisoned Rosenharte's family. But the Stasi is not the only intelligence agency using Rosenharte. Soon the British and Americans encircle him, forcing him to choose between abandoning his beloved brother to a torturous death and returning to East Germany as a double agent. As the political pressures against the East German government rise, Rudi must face his own crises. Brandenburg Gate shows Henry Porter at the top of his game.

About this title

About the Author:

Henry Porter has written for most national broadsheet newspapers. He was editor of the Atticus column on the Sunday Times, moving to set up the Sunday Correspondent magazine in 1988. 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.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Set in East Germany during the bleak, waning days of 1989, this stand-alone thriller from British author Porter (A Spy's Life) combines impeccable research with compelling characters caught up in the broad sweep of fascinating historical events. The Stasi want art scholar Dr. Rudi Rosenharte to take part in a dangerous mission involving a former lover Rudi knows is dead, but who the Stasi thinks is not only alive but also harboring vital state secrets. Rudi has little choice, since the Stasi are holding Rudi's brother, Konrad, and his family hostage. Rudi, an ex-Stasi agent himself, clandestinely enlists the aid of the British SIS, the CIA and even the KGB as he pits all of these agencies against one another in an effort to smuggle Konrad and family across the border to the safety of the West. Readers will know that in a few weeks the Wall will be torn down, but at the time, as Porter makes clear, this was not a foregone conclusion, and death and disaster, as in Tiananmen Square, was a real possibility. It's easy to see why this riveting read won the CWA's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0871139405
• ISBN 13: 9780871139405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448