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This page lists novels Joseph Kanon.

Cover images are, when possible, of the first US edition and a recent paperback or digital edition.

Los Alamos

Joseph Kanon

1997

"Spring 1945. As work on the first atomic bomb nears completion in New Mexico, Karl Bruner, a Manhattan Project security officer, is found murdered. Michael Connolly, the intelligence officer brought in to crack Bruner's case, soon discovers that investigating a murder in Los Alamos - a town so secret it does not officially exist - is anything but easy. Only once he falls in love and begins an affair with Emma, the enigmatic wife of one of the scientists, does he truly begin to unravel the dark heart of the Project. Interweaving fact and fiction, Los Alamos is at once a powerful novel of historical intrigue and a vivid portrait of the most mysterious figures involved in the Manhattan Project: Robert Oppenheimer."

The Prodigal Spy

Joseph Kanon

1998

"It is 1950 and communists are being hunted across America. When Walter Kotlar is accused of being a spy by the House Un-American Activities Committee, his young son Nick destroys a piece of evidence only he knows about. But before the hearing can conclude, Walter flees the country, leaving behind his family... and a key witness lying dead, apparently having committed suicide. Nineteen years later, Nick gets a second chance to discover the truth when a beautiful journalist brings a message from his long-lost father, and Nick follows her into Soviet-occupied Prague for a painful reunion and the discovery of a secret that changes everything. To unravel the lies Nick must return to where it all began and expose the one person who knew the truth - and who watched his family's destruction."

The Good German

Joseph Kanon

2001

"Jake Geismar cut his teeth as a foreign correspondent in pre-war Berlin. When he returns in 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference he finds the city unrecognisable - streets have vanished beneath the rubble, familiar landmarks truncated by high explosive. But amongst the ruins Berliners survive, including some he knew and, miraculously, his lost love, Lena. However, in the same way she refused to leave with him before the war, Lena won't join him now without finding her husband and Emil has disappeared from the safe care of the Americans who, turning a blind eye to his links with Hitler, want his expertise as a rocket designer for themselves. Trawling through the shambles of the city, through the illegal night clubs and the thriving black market, Jake discovers that the twilight war of intrigue between west and east has already begun and that he could quite easily be one of its first casualties."

Alibi

Joseph Kanon

2005

"The year is 1946. A stunned Europe is beginning its slow recovery from the ravages of World War II. Adam Miller has come to Venice to visit his widowed mother and forget the horrors he witnessed as a US Army war crimes investigator in Germany. But when Adam falls in love with Claudia, a Jewish woman scarred by her devastating experiences during the war, he is forced to confront a Venice haunted by atrocities it would rather forget. Beneath the dream-like façade he discovers a city in which everyone was compromised by occupation, not least Gianni Maglione, the suave and enigmatic Venetian who is both his mother's new suitor and the man responsible for much of Claudia's suffering. When the troubled past erupts in violent murder, Adam finds himself at the centre of a torturous web in which the most valuable thing is not a stone-cold alibi, but the truth itself."

Stardust

Joseph Kanon

2009

"Hollywood, 1945. Ben Collier returns from war to the news that his filmmaker brother Daniel has died in mysterious circumstances -- the papers say it was an accident, but others suspect suicide. Daniel was a heroic figure who helped many prominent German intellectuals escape Europe before the war and then settled in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife, Liesl. Why would a man with such a bright future take his own life? Could he have been murdered? Beneath the surface shine of the movie business lies a darker world where even the biggest stars and star-makers are vulnerable to old secrets being exposed and old loyalties tested."

Istanbul Passage

Joseph Kanon

2012

"A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now, as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post-war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion. Leon's attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. Istanbul Passage is the story of a man swept up in the aftermath of war, an unexpected love affair, and a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it."

Leaving Berlin

Joseph Kanon

2014

"Berlin is still in ruins almost four years after the war, caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation. Alex Meier is a young Jewish writer who fled the Nazis for America before the war. Now, the politics of his youth have left him embroiled in the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, Alex makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. Espionage, like the black market, is still a way of life."

Defectors

Joseph Kanon

2017

"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."