Union Station

'Enthralling … A first-rate espionage novel' WILLIAM BOYD

1953. Stalin is dead and John Russell's days as a double agent for the USSR and the USA are behind him. Now the British journalist lives a quiet life in Los Angeles with his actress wife, Effi, and their daughter, while around them the McCarthy-era hearings are closing in on Hollywood.

But someone is following Russell. Is it because of his research into American firms that collaborated with Nazi Germany? Or his earlier espionage work? Or something else? The answer takes John and Effi back to Berlin, now a city divided, where the fight for Stalin's succession is on.

The latest chapter in the John Russell series, David Downing's Union Station is a superbly evocative Cold War thriller.