The Valley of Unknowing - Softcover

"Remarkable... Superbly anchored in place and time. A brilliant, evocative novel, a gripping hard-nosed authentic thriller" (Peter Millar The Times)

"The Valley of Unknowing is simply superb: affecting but never melodramatic, literary but never less than thrilling." (Financial Times)

"A remarkable novel, the first in English to give us a nuanced portrait of life in Communist East Germany, its absurdity, its menace, and its pervasive sense of betrayal" (Joseph Kanon, author of The Good German)

"Amadeus meets The Lives of Others in a compelling story of jealousy and betrayal behind the Iron Curtain" (Kirkus (starred review))

"Sington brilliantly captures what life in East Germany must have been like... Perfect" (Chasingbawa)

In the twilight years of Communist East Germany, Bruno Krug, a womanising 'People’s Champion of Art and Culture' who once penned a world-famous novel, falls for Theresa Aden, a music student from the West. But Theresa has also caught the eye of a cocky young scriptwriter who delights in satirising Bruno’s more recent, tamer offerings.

Asked to appraise a mysterious manuscript, Bruno is disconcerted to find that the author is none other than his rival. Worse than that the book is good - very good - but also subtly subversive. If his pursuit of Theresa is to end in triumph, Bruno decides he must employ a small deception. However, in the paranoid labyrinth of a police state, knowing the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the betrayed isn’t just difficult – it’s a matter of life and death.