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John Lawton

A gripping, meticulously researched and richly detailed historical thriller moving from London during the Blitz, to divided post-war Berlin.

John Holderness, known to most as 'Wilderness', comes of age during World War II in Stepney, breaking in to houses with his grandfather.

After the war, Wilderness is recruited as MI5's resident 'cat burglar' and finds himself in Berlin, involved with schemes in the booming black market that put both him and his relationships in danger.

In 1963 it is a most unusual and lucrative request that persuades Wilderness to return - to smuggle someone under the Berlin Wall and out of East Germany. But this final scheme may prove to be one challenge too far...

Grove Press UK

Joe Wilderness series

Then We Take Berlin

A thrilling portrait of 1960s Berlin and Krushchev's Moscow, centring around the exchange of two spies - a Russian working for the KGB, and an unfortunate Englishman.

Having shot someone in the chaos of 1963 Berlin, Wilderness finds himself locked up with little chance of escape. But an official pardon through his father-in-law Burne-Jones, a senior agent at MI6, means he is free to go - although forever in Burne-Jones's service.

When the Russians started building the Berlin wall in 1961, two 'Unfortunate Englishmen' were trapped on opposite sides. Geoffrey Masefield in the Lubyanka, and Bernard Alleyn (alias KGB Captain Leonid Liubimov) in Wormwood Scrubs.

In 1965 there is a new plan. To exchange the prisoners, a swap upon Berlin's bridge of spies. But, as ever, Joe has something on the side, just to make it interesting, just to make it profitable...

The Unfortunate Englishman