First published 1990
Charlie Heller decodes secrets in a windowless CIA office, far from the violence that defines his agency's work. His world shatters when terrorists kill his fiancée Sarah Diamond in a bombing at the American Embassy in West Germany. The Company writes off her death as collateral damage and refuses to go after the perpetrators. Heller cannot accept this. He abandons his desk job and crosses into Czechoslovakia to find Sarah's murderers himself. Behind the Iron Curtain, the mild-mannered code breaker enters a lethal game he was never trained for. Professional killers and seasoned operatives hunt him while he hunts them. Heller has no field experience, no contacts, no backup. He has only his intelligence and his need for vengeance driving him forward in a world where amateurs do not survive.
Genres: mystery, thriller, action, espionage
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, lone-wolf
Setting: Czechoslovakia, Germany, West Germany
Period: 20th-century
302 pages · Paperback · Dell Publishing Company
Content warnings: violence