The Berlin Affair

Summer 1940. American Xanthe Schneider is drawn into British naval intelligence and sent into Nazi Germany disguised as a journalist. Her task is to find Ralph Lancing-Price, a former British minister she once knew in London, and discover whether he has become a traitor. In Berlin she encounters a secret project called Enigma and is forced to navigate the Gestapo, double loyalties and her own feelings for the man she has been sent to investigate.

The first Xanthe Schneider thriller combines a fictional espionage mission with the early wartime struggle over German encrypted communications. Boyle uses Berlin’s atmosphere of surveillance and political fear to place Xanthe between personal trust and professional duty, while the emerging importance of Enigma links her mission to the wider British codebreaking effort.