Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton

Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton

Joe Wilderness is a World War I orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But in 1946 he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison . . . when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents.

Posted to occupied Berlin, interrogating ex-Nazis, and burgling the odd apartment for MI6, Wilderness finds himself with time on his hands and the devil making work. He falls in with Frank, a US Army captain, with Eddie, a British artilleryman and with Yuri, a major in the NKVD and together they lift the black market scam to a new level. Coffee never tasted so sweet. And he falls for Nell Breakheart, a German girl who has witnessed the worst that Germany could do and is driven by all the scruples that Wilderness lacks.

Fifteen years later, June 1963. Wilderness is free-lance and down on his luck. A gumshoe scraping by on divorce cases. Frank is a big shot on Madison Avenue, cooking up one last Berlin scam . . . for which he needs Wilderness once more. Only now they're not smuggling coffee, they're smuggling people. And Nell? Nell is on the staff of West Berlin's mayor Willy Brandt, planning for the state visit of the most powerful man in the world: Ich bin ein Berliner

Then We Take Berlin is a gripping, meticulously researched and richly detailed historical thriller - a moving story of espionage and war, and people caught up in the most tumultuous events of the twenty-first century.

Second Violin, Flesh Wounds, and Bluffing Churchill are only a few of John Lawton's 10 works. His thriller Black Out earned a WH Smith Fresh Talent Award, his novel A Little White Death was called a New York Times notable book, and his most recent novel A Lily of the Field was rated one of the greatest thrillers of the year by The New York Times' Marilyn Stasio. He resides in the English county of Derbyshire.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780802122766
ISBN 10	0802122760
Title	Then We Take Berlin
Author	John Lawton
Series	Joe Wilderness Novels
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
Year published	2014-11-11
Number of pages	432
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.