Rudi Rosenharte is an East German academic, re­luc­tant­ly working for the Stasi, in the months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Stasi are holding his twin brother, Konrad, hostage. Rudi’s desperate to get Konrad and his family out, and he’s recruited by British In­tel­li­gence.

Rudi ends up keeping four in­tel­li­gence services at bay, as he walks along an ever more precarious tightrope. The plot is, of course, im­plau­si­ble. The book brings the sheer nastiness of a police state to life, and shows the East German state collapsing as it celebrates its fortieth an­niver­sary.