Into the dark heart of Berlin – Olaf Kühl’s cleverly constructed literary thriller
Travel group guide Konrad Mauser gets caught up in an intelligence service operation in Berlin. The CIA thinks he has murdered a Russian defector and force Mauser into hiding. When Konrad’s best friend Pavel, a Polish-born Nietzsche specialist with a tenuous hold on life, doesn’t hear from Konrad, he goes out to search for him. He meets 17-year-old Jana, who thinks Pavel a romantic hero and helps him in his investigation. Neither protagonist has any idea they are in the crosshairs of the CIA, whose surveillance uncovers only the wretched state of Pavel’s marriage, deepening their suspicions.
When a second autopsy declares that death was from natural causes, the intelligence community is split. Cowley, a young intelligence agent, suspects that a political assassination is being covered up and launches his own secret probe. In Olaf Kühl’s brilliant literary thriller, a small mistake at the CIA turns the life of several Berlin residents upside-down, with unforeseen consequences.
