Ex-American publisher Joe Kanon is a much underrated master of the classic espionage tale, best known for The Good German which was filmed with George Clooney in the eponymous part, but his other novels of spies and the Cold War are all similarly gripping. Defectors, set in the late 1950s and early 1960s introduces two brothers who took different political paths, one who worked for the OSS and then the CIA and has now become a publisher and the other who defected to Russia out of personal conviction following the Spanish Civil War. When the latter, now living in Moscow with his family, writes his memoirs, his brother plans to visit him and is soon confronted by an intricate web of spying, treachery, past sins, shifting truths and regrets. Kanon's strength lies in the realism of his characters rather than the rote exposition of shenanigans and by the numbers action scenes and the results are eminently rewarding. An intelligent chess game-like thriller with a solid foundation of human experience, just the sort of book that hooks you in with stealth and then never lets go. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
Some secrets should never be told. Moscow, 1961: With the launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union's international prestige is at an all-time high. And the most notorious of the defectors to the Soviet Union, former CIA agent Frank Weeks, is about to publish his memoirs. What he reveals will send shock waves through the West. Weeks' defection in the early 1950s shook Washington to its core - and forced the resignation of his brother, Simon, from the State Department. Simon, now a publisher in New York, is given the opportunity to read and publish his brother's memoir. He knows the US government will never approve the publication of what is clearly intended as KGB propaganda. Yet the offer is irresistible: it will finally give him the chance to learn why his brother chose to betray his country. But what he discovers in Moscow is far more shocking than he ever imagined ...
'Kanon is fast approaching the complexity and relevance not just of le Carre and Greene but even of Orwell' New York Times
'The perfect combination of intrigue and accurate history brought to life' Alan Furst
'Sensational! No one writes period fiction with the same style and suspense - not to mention substance - as Joseph Kanon' Scott Turow
'Joseph Kanon owns this corner of the literary landscape and it's a joy to see him reassert his title with such emphatic authority' Lee Child
Author
About Joseph Kanon
Joseph Kanon was a publisher for many years, but turned poacher by becoming a novelist with his first, bestselling, thriller LOS ALAMOS, which was awarded the Edgar for the best first novel of 1997.
