Brandenburg - Hardcover

"The writing [is] cogent, angry, stylish and informed. Porter is an expert literary historian, intrigued by his own times. His take on post-war Germany is sober, truthful, anxious and well remembered... Porter's scene-setting is painful and all prevailing. Perhaps it's wimpish to complain, but it could be that he's done the job a touch too well." (Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW, June 2005 )

"A first-rate thriller.... Porter sustains an elaborate plot skilfully and portrays memorable, multi-faceted characters. But his achievement lies in producing a remarkably comprehensive counterpart in fiction to Anna Funder's nonfiction study Stasiland, recreating the paranoid, Kafkaesque state. This gives Brandenburg a richness of texture... and exhilaratingly testifies to the thiller genre's ability to transcend its primary role as entertainment." (John Dugdale THE SUNDAY TIMES )

"This is Porter's fourth novel, set in those beautifully dark and intriguing days of the Cold War, and is by far his best. Rudi is a brilliantly drawn character, both complex and sympathetic... [Porter] is proving himself more than a match for John Le Carre. Thankfully the spy novel lives on." (Henry Sutton DAILY MIRROR, 17 June )

"Henry Porter is seriously rewarding... a stunning evocation of the Cold War at its nastiest." (TATLER, July issue )

"A first-rate thriller.... Porter sustains an elaborate plot skilfully and portrays memorable, multi-faceted characters. But his achievement lies in producing a remarkably comprehensive counterpart in fiction to Anna Funder's nonfiction study Stasiland, recreating the paranoid, Kafkaesque state. This gives Brandenburg a richness of texture... and exhilaratingly testifies to the thiller genre's ability to transcend its primary role as entertainment." (John Dugdale THE SUNDAY TIMES, 19 June )

"An accomplished retro-thriller... warmly recommended. Henry Porter has fast become one of the masters of the genre. Like all the best thriller writers, Porter does sex far better than he does violence." (David Robson THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, 3 July )

"Another elegant spy thriller... not merely a tale of intrigue and deception, betrayal and retribution, but also an examination of the people who live through these experiences. Love does not flourish easily in this kind of environment, and it is a tribute to Porter's skills as a writer that the realtionship remains real, and viable. There are some moments of intense and harrowing anxiety, as well as a few marvellous pieces of direct action... also an exquisite, almost hidden, sub-plot." (Matthew Lewin THE GUARDIAN, 9 July )

"Porter handles this convoluted plot with considerable skill, driving the narrative at a cracking pace. Rosenharte comes alive on the page.. Ulrike is equally well-drawn. A real page-turner... a thriller of high ambition." (Philip Jacobson DAILY MAIL, 8 July )

"[There is a] unity and a strength of purpose to this solidly researched thriller." (NEW STATESMAN, 23 July )

"I got hooked on Brandenburg." (Daniel Johnson THE EVENING STANDARD, 20 June )

The Stasi was among the most sophisticated intelligence organisations in the world, but by the end of the 80s the state of East Germany was collapsing around it. The squads of armed officers, the torture chambers in the Stasi jails, the hundreds of thousands of informers could do nothing to prevent the rebellion that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is in the context of these last few paranoid weeks of the Communist world that BRANDENBURG is set. Dr Rudi Rosenharte - once a double agent, now an art historian living quietly in Dresden - is summoned toTrieste for a rendezvous with former lover and colleague, Annalise Schering. Yet Rosenharte knows she's dead: he'd seen her himself, lying in her own bloodied bathwater. So who is this woman, this ghost? The Stasi believes she's the real Annalise and that she has vital intelligence to impart to Rosenharte, for they have intercepted a letter from her saying exactly that. And to ensure that Rosenharte plays their game, they have imprisoned his family and will only release them when Rudi has got the information they so desperately seek. But the Stasi is not the only intelligence organisation with its claws in Rudi Rosenharte. Soon he is encircled by no fewer than four, including MI6, and he must face a stark choice: to leave those he loves to the mercy of the Stasi; or to return to East Germany to carry out a dangerous assignment under the Stasi's all-seeing eye.