After the war Alex returns to Vienna and discovers that the city and his former life have been destroyed. An old contact recruits him into a new American-backed intelligence service staffed largely by former German military officers and focused on the growing Soviet threat.
His first assignment is also personal: locate the Gestapo officer who helped ruin his life and is attempting to escape through the Alpine ratlines to South America. The pursuit forces Alex to work beside compromised allies and decide whether justice can be separated from revenge when the new Cold War makes useful Nazis valuable again.
The Alpine escape routes reflect a genuine post-war problem. Displaced people, war criminals, intelligence officers and political refugees all moved through Austria and Italy while the Western Allies were already redefining priorities around the Soviet threat. Alex’s pursuit therefore asks what happens to justice when yesterday’s enemy can suddenly become a useful source, technician or anti-communist asset.
Len Deighton
27 books
Lee Jackson
15 books
James R. Benn
26 books
Ken Follett
16 books
Max Hennessy
36 books