Richard Wake

Richard Wake is an author of historical crime and espionage thrillers whose writing developed from a long career in newspapers and a sustained interest in twentieth-century European history. His novels combine political upheaval with fast-moving plots, following characters forced to navigate surveillance, occupation, divided loyalties and the moral compromises demanded by intelligence work.

Wake is best known for the Alex Kovacs series, which begins in pre-war Vienna and follows its protagonist through Nazi expansion, the French Resistance and the emerging Cold War. He also writes the Peter Ritter mysteries, centred on an East Berlin detective during the construction and consolidation of the Berlin Wall, and the La Rue Crime Family novels, set in the criminal underworld of 1950s Paris. His fiction is particularly suited to readers interested in the Second World War, post-war Europe, espionage and life under authoritarian regimes.

Periods and events

Berlin Wall and Divided Berlin D-Day and Normandy Campaign French Resistance Cold War and Post-war Era Holocaust German Occupation of France Postwar Nazi Hunting Nazi Germany Appeasement and the Road to War Rise of Nazism

Series

Series by Richard Wake (2 series)

Peter Ritter Thriller in Order

by Richard Wake 2 books 4.4

The Peter Ritter series follows a young detective in the East Berlin murder squad during the crisis that culminates in the Berlin Wall. Ritter benefits from political connections within the ruling system but remains committed to evidence and individual truth, even when a case threatens the authority of…

A Death in East Berlin

4.4

In the Shadow of the Wall

4.4

Alex Kovacs Thriller in Order

by Richard Wake 15 books 4.3

The Alex Kovacs series follows a Czech-born Viennese businessman who is drawn into espionage during the destruction of interwar Europe. Books one and two place him against the rise of Nazism and the approach of war; books three to seven follow his work in the French Resistance from…