Dead Ground: A Novel

Spy fiction its best: A mission of revenge, a haunting love story, and a chilling tale -- in the definitive novel of the end of the Cold War. Celebrated for his "palm-sweating tension" (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times) and "rare insight" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), Gerald Seymour has scored bull's-eye after bull's-eye with readers and critics. Now, crackling with suspense and finely realized characters, Dead Ground floodlights an East German Stasi as chilling at the collapse of the Communist world as it was throughout its reign of terror. One frozen night, Tracy Barnes witnesses the killing of her lover by the secret police. Years later, when the Wall has crumbled and old enemies have become new friends, Tracy encounters the murderer and plans to make him pay. But in a country still at war with itself, Tracy finds that she is being played as a pawn in a far bigger game of revenge that reaches all the way to Moscow. In Dead Ground, exposing some uncomfortable truths behind one of recent history's most important political transitions, Gerald Seymour shows himself to be a truly unique talent.