Description
It's 1954 and Bernie has grown tired of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky for Cuban intelligence. He secretly buys a boat and sails to Florida, where he's arrested, sent back to Cuba and imprisoned in the Isle of Pines. There he meets Castro and a French intelligence officer, Thibaud, who liaises between the CIA and French intelligence. Exhaustively questioned by Thibaud, Bernie finds himself flown back to Berlin and another prison cell with a choice: work for the French or hang for murder. Bernie's job is to meet and greet POWs returning from Germany. One of these is Edgard de Boudel, a French war criminal and member of the French SS, who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer. The French are anxious to catch up with this man and deal with him in their own ruthless way. But Bernie's past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him in a way he could never have foreseen.
Endorsements
'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' — Lee Child
'Kerr leads us through the facts of history and the vagaries of human nature' — Tom Hanks
'One of the greatest master story-tellers in English' — Alan Furst
'One of the most memorable and original characters' — The Sunday Times
'Bitterly, darkly funny' — Sunday Herald