Dan Fesperman discusses Winter Work
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Special guest host: Joseph Kanon
Dan Fesperman. Winter Work (Knopf, $28.00 Signed).
An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall—from the acclaimed author of The Cover Wife
On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.
Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She'll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe.
With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows.
Dan Fesperman first began writing about dangerous and mysterious people and places as a journalist, a newspaper career that culminated in his years as a foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. Reporting from Europe and the Middle East, he covered three wars while also finding the time to write his first three novels. He then quit the newspaper biz to write fiction fulltime, and now travels on his own dime.
He grew up in Charlotte, NC, and, as a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a diehard Tar Heel. He is married to the journalist Liz Bowie, and they live just north of Baltimore. Their two children have moved off to adventures of their own.
Dan’s thirteen critically acclaimed novels of intrigue and suspense have won two Dagger Awards from the UK Crime Writers Association, the Dashiell Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, and the Barry Award for Best Thriller, and have been selected as the year’s best mystery/thriller by USA Today.
Joseph Kanon is the internationally bestselling author of ten novels, which have been published in twenty-four languages: Los Alamos, which won the Edgar Award for best first novel; The Good German, which was made into a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett; The Prodigal Spy, Alibi, which earned Kanon the Hammett Award of the International Association of Crime Writers; Leaving Berlin and Defectors. He is also a recipient of The Anne Frank Human Writers Award for his writings on the aftermath of the Holocaust. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City with his wife, literary agent Robin Straus. They have two sons.