The Arms Maker of Berlin

This powerfully suspenseful new novel from Dan Fesperman takes us deep into the early 1940s in Switzerland and Germany as it traces the long reach of the wartime intrigues of the White Rose student movement, which dared to speak out against Hitler. When Nat Turnbull, a history professor who specializes in the German resistance, gets the news that his estranged mentor, Gordon Wolfe, has been arrested for possession of stolen World War II archives, he’s hardly surprised that, even at the age of eighty-four, Gordon has gotten himself in trouble. But what’s in the archives is staggering: a spymaster’s trove missing since the end of the war, one that Gordon has always claimed is full of “secrets you can’t find anywhere else . . . live ammunition.” Yet key documents are still missing, and Nat believes Gordon has hidden them. The FBI agrees, and when Gordon is found dead in jail, the Bureau dispatches Nat to track down the material, which has also piqued the interest of several dangerous competitors. As he follows a trail of cryptic clues left behind by Gordon, assisted by an attractive academic with questionable motives, Nat’s quest takes him to Bern and Berlin, where his path soon crosses that of Kurt Bauer, an aging German arms merchant still hoarding his own wartime secrets. As their stories—and Gordon’s—intersect across half a century, long-buried exploits of deceit, devotion, and doomed resistance begin working their way to the surface. And as the stakes rise, so do the risks . . .

Literature & Fiction

Fesperman, Dan

United States

KNOPF

The newest thriller from the author of The Amateur Spy and The Prisoner of Guantánamo (“Worthy of sharing shelf space with the novels of John le Carré and Ken Follett”—USA Today) is as dazzling as its setting. Sam Keller has been enlisted by his V.P. for Corporate Security and Investigation to spy on another employee while they’re traveling for the company. Ordinarily careful to a fault, Sam decides to live it up. What better spot for business-class hedonism than boomtown Dubai, where resort islands materialize from open ocean, fortunes are made overnight, and skiers crisscross the snowy slope of a shopping mall. But when Sam’s charge is murdered during a night on the town, it is only the first in a series of bewildering events that plunge him waist-deep into a lethal mix of mobsters, prostitutes, crooked cops, consuls, and corporate players. Offering a chancy way out is Anwar Sharaf, the unlikeliest of detectives. A former pearl diver and gold smuggler with an undignified demeanor, Sharaf is sometimes as baffled as Sam by the changes to his homeland, especially as they are embodied in the behavior of his rebelliously independent—and hauntingly beautiful—daughter. But he knows where the levers of power reside. As the unlikely duo work their way toward the heart of the case, each man must confront the darkest forces threatening Dubai from within. Here is Dan Fesperman’s most suspenseful novel yet: a stunning portrait of a city whose mysterious rhythm (“like the precision throb of an artificial heart, clicking and insistent, yet cool to the touch”) is underscored by the insistent clashing of old and new.

Layover in Dubai

An unflinching thriller from Dan Fesperman that takes us deep into the White Rose resistance movement during World War II. When Nat Turnbull’s mentor, Gordon Wolfe, is arrested for possession of a missing WWII secret service archive and then turns up dead in jail, Nat’s quiet academic life is suddenly thrown into tumult. The archive is a time bomb of sensitive material, but key documents are still missing, and the FBI dispatches Nat to track them down. Following a trail of cryptic clues, Nat's journeys to Germany, where he soon crosses paths with Berta, a gorgeous and mysterious student and Kurt Bauer, an arms billionaire with a dark past. As their tales intersect, long-buried exploits of deceit emerge, and each step becomes more dangerous than the last.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Award-winning author Dan Fesperman delivers a suspenseful and stunning thriller set in the mysterious and gleaming city of Dubai. Sam Keller, an auditor at a giant pharmaceutical firm, expected a six-hour layover in Dubai. Then his company's corporate security officer asked him to extend his stay two days to keep an eye on a hard-partying colleague. Sam agrees, but against his better judgment, he decides to live it up a little, which has disastrous results. First Hatcher is murdered. Then Sam is arrested. Was he set up? Unsure whether he can trust his employer, Sam forms an unlikely alliance detective with Anwar Sharaf, a former pearl diver and gold smuggler. As the duo works its way toward the heart of the case, plunging waist-deep into a lethal mix of mobsters, prostitutes, crooked cops, consuls, and corporate players, each must confront the darkest forces threatening Dubai from within.

Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

A few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, spook-turned-novelist Edwin Lemaster revealed to up-and-coming journalist Bill Cage that he’d once considered spying for the enemy. For Cage, a Foreign Service brat who grew up in the very cities where Lemaster’s books were set, the news story created a brief but embarrassing sensation and heralded the beginning of the end of his career in journalism. More than two decades later, Cage, now a lonely, disillusioned PR man, receives an anonymous note hinting that he should have dug deeper into Lemaster’s pronouncement. Spiked with cryptic references to some of Cage’s favorite spy novels, the note is the first of many literary bread crumbs that lead him back to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, each instruction drawing him closer to the complex truth, each giving rise to more questions: Why is beautiful Litzi Strauss back in his life after thirty years? How much of his father’s job involved the CIA? As the events of Lemaster’s past eerily—and dangerously—begin intersecting with those of Cage’s own, a “long stalemate of secrecy” may finally be coming to an end. A story about spies and their secrets, fathers and sons, lovers and fate, duplicity and loyalty, The Double Game ingeniously taps the espionage classics of the Cold War to build a spellbinding maze of intrigue. It is Dan Fesperman’s most audacious, suspenseful, and satisfying novel yet.

The Double Game

A Seattle Times Best Mystery of the Year A Times of London Best Crime/Thriller Book of the Year A few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, spook-turned-novelist Edwin Lemaster reveals to up-and-coming journalist Bill Cage that he’d once considered spying for the enemy. For Cage, a fan who grew up as a Foreign Service brat in the very cities where Lemaster set his plots, the story creates a brief but embarrassing sensation. More than two decades later, Cage receives an anonymous note hinting that he should have dug deeper. Spiked with cryptic references to some of his and his father’s favorite old spy novels, the note is the first piece of a puzzle that will lead Cage back to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest in search of the truth, even as he discovers that the ghosts of Lemaster’s past eerily—and dangerously—still haunt the present. As the suspense steadily increases, decades of secrets begin to unravel.

The Double Game (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Revere Falk - FBI veteran, Arabic speaker - is an interrogator at Gitmo, assigned to a hold-out, a Yemeni prisoner who may have valuable information about al Qaeda. But these duties are temporarily suspended when the body of an American soldier is found washed ashore in Cuban territory. No American has ever turned up dead on the wrong side of the fence before. Suddenly, Cold War tension is back and Falk finds himself at the heart of it when he s put in charge of the investigation into the death. Almost immediately he senses an unusual level of interest in the proceedings: from his commander, from the Cubans, and from the various factions of the military. And when the Defense Intelligence Agency unexpectedly sends its own team to reinforce the investigation, Falk understands that there is much more at stake than anybody is willing to say. Now, he is drawn into a game of evasion and pursuit, a game whose stakes spike dangerously when a figure from his past reappears - someone who knows secrets about him that he had hoped were buried forever."

The Prisoner of Guantanamo

Contemporary

Hodder&Stoughton

Revere Falk is an FBI interrogator who believes it is possible to get more from a terrorist suspect by treating him decently than by using more 'robust' methods. He lives his life by a certain code of honour. This puts him in a minority at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So when the body of a US soldier is found under mysterious circumstances on the beach, and a high-ranking investigative team is flown in, Falk should be above suspicion. But Falk has a secret, a secret he had hoped was dead and buried. Now, it is reaching out from his past, to the sodium-lit cell blocks and stifling humidity of this claustrophobic rumour-mill of a community, and its implications are greater than he could ever have imagined.

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Hodder

Burned out by years of humanitarian-aid work, Freeman and Mila Lockhart have retreated to an idyllic Greek island. But on the first night of their new life they are surprised by three intruders who seem to know everything about―including a haunting secret he has long kept from Mila. They use it to blackmail him into spying on an old Palestinian friend in Jordan. Overnight, Freeman is plunged into the maelstrom of the Middle East and is quickly in over his head.In suburban Washington, D.C., meanwhile, a prosperous Palestinian-American couple, Abbas and Aliyah Rahim, are still grieving for their daughter, accidentally killed while vacationing abroad. Abbas, a surgeon whose patients number among the nation’s elite, blames her death on the bureaucratic machinations of overly suspicious officials. Aliyah fears he may be reeling toward fanaticism, and her efforts to avert this take her to Jordan. Like Freeman, she is soon overwhelmed by the region’s dangerous passions and complexities.As their paths converge, Freeman and Aliyah―both desperately worried about the loved ones they left behind―must swiftly separate fact from illusion, enemy from friend. The consequences of failure could be catastrophic.…

The Amateur Spy

Hodder Paperbacks

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Books by Fesperman, Dan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fesperman, Dan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Arms Maker of Berlin

Layover in Dubai

The Arms Maker of Berlin

Layover in Dubai

The Double Game

The Double Game (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

The Prisoner of Guantanamo

The Prisoner of Guantanamo

The Prisoner of Guantanamo

The Amateur Spy