The prequel to David Downing’s bestselling Station series introduces John Russell, an Englishman with a political past who must keep his head down as the Nazis solidify their power.February 27, 1933. In this stunning prequel to the John Russell espionage novels, the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin is set ablaze. It’s just a month after Hitler’s inauguration as Chancellor of Germany, and the Nazis use the torching to justify a campaign of terror against thei...

In Russia the Bolshevik revolution is in full-swing while the supposed Great War is destroying Europe in ways never before imagined. Fulltime lovers and part-time enemies, British spy Jack McColl and progressive American journalist Caitlin Hanley, have seen their relationship survive this far but in a world defined by “win at all cost” attitudes how much longer can they hold out?Winter 1917: As a generation of Europe’s young men perish on the Eastern and Western fr...

In this fascinating historical thriller, a British journalist (and former spy) is adrift in McCarthy-era Los Angeles—until his research into a wartime conspiracy brings him face-to-face with the perilous instability of a post-Stalin Berlin.John Russell, an English journalist who specializes in human-interest pieces, had always been a reluctant spy. It’s a dangerous life—especially when you are tasked with being a double agent for Soviet and American intelligence, i...

THE HEART-STOPPING FINAL INSTALMENT OF THE BESTSELLING STATION SERIES Europe, 1948. The continent is once again divided: into the Soviet-controlled East, and the US-dominated West. John Russell and his old comrade-in-espionage Shchepkin need to find a way out of the dangerous, morally murky world they have both inhabited for far too long. But they can't just walk away: if they want to escape with their lives, they must uncover a secret so damaging that they can buy their safety with silenc...

Spring 1915: World War One rages across Europe, and the British Empire is assailed on all fronts—domestic and abroad. Amidst this bloodbath of nations, where one man’s flag is another man’s shroud, a British spy is asked to do the impossible: seduce and betray the woman he loves, again. Only this time betrayal is a two-way street.Jack McColl, a spy for His Majesty’s Secret Service, is stationed in India and charged with defending the Empire against Bengali terroris...

FIENDISHLY CLEVER AND GRIPPING HISTORICAL THRILLER SET IN THE LAST DAYS OF WW2 1945. The Red Army tears through Europe towards Berlin, exacting vengeance on a biblical scale, while the British and the Americans close in from the west. Victory over Hitler seems certain. But deep inside the Kremlin, Stalin worries about a new enemy. When the war is over, how will the Soviet Union protect itself against the overweening American behemoth? Meanwhile, ever more desperate, Hitler paces up and dow...

'Enthralling … A first-rate espionage novel' WILLIAM BOYD 1953. Stalin is dead and John Russell's days as a double agent for the USSR and the USA are behind him. Now the British journalist lives a quiet life in Los Angeles with his actress wife, Effi, and their daughter, while around them the McCarthy-era hearings are closing in on Hollywood. But someone is following Russell. Is it because of his research into American firms that collaborated with Nazi Germany? Or his earlier espionage wor...

Paris, November 1945. John Russell is walking home along the banks of the Seine on a cold and misty evening when Soviet agent Yevgeny Shchepkin falls into step alongside him. Shchepkin tells Russell that the American intelligence will soon be asking him to undertake some low grade espionage on their behalf—assessing the strains between different sections of the German Communist Party—and that Shchepkin’s own bosses in Moscow want him to accept the task and pass his findings on to them. He ...

From bestselling author David Downing, master of historical espionage, comes a heart-wrenching depiction of Germany in the days leading up to World War II and the difficult choices of one man of conviction. In April 1938, a man calling himself Josef Hofmann arrives at a boarding house in Hamm, Germany, and lets a room from the widow who owns it. Fifty years later, Walter Gersdorff, the widow's son, who was eleven years old in the spring of 1938, discovers the carefully hidden diary the boa...

April 1945. Hitler's Reich is on the verge of extinction, and its enemies are already plotting against each other. Assaulted by Allied bombs and Soviet shells, ruled by Nazis with nothing to lose, Berlin has become the most dangerous place on earth.Anglo-American journalist John Russell has travelled to Moscow, having escaped from Berlin in 1941 as America entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbour.Russell's eighteen-year-old son Paul, born to a German mother, is o...

November 1945. John Russell is walking home through the grey streets of postwar London when his old accomplice, Soviet agent Yevgeny Shchepkin, falls into step beside him. Shchepkin informs Russell that his masters in Moscow have decided it's time to pay them back for securing his safe exit from Russia in the last days of the war. Russell must return to Berlin to spy on his former colleagues in the German Communist Party, reporting on any deviation from the Stalinist line. Worse, he is ord...

In April 1945, Hitler’s Reich is on the verge of extinction. Assaulted by Allied bombs and Soviet shells, ruled by Nazis with nothing to lose, Berlin has become the most dangerous place on earth.John Russell’s son Paul is stationed on the Eastern Front with the German Army, awaiting the Soviets’ final onslaught. In Berlin, Russell’s girlfriend Effi has been living in disguise, helping fugitives to escape from Germany. With a Jewish orphan to care for, she’s trying to outlast the Na...