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WINTER WORK

by Dan Fesperman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

An engrossing, deep-in-the-weeds thriller.

The Berlin Wall has just fallen, but following the murder of a close colleague, disillusioned Stasi veteran Emil Grimm finds that escaping his life in East Germany is as risky as ever.

In the chaos following the historic event, intelligence is up for grabs, pitting Russians against Americans against Germans for the names of thousands of agents in the field. Emil lives in a dacha in the woods north of Berlin with his bedridden wife, Bettina, who has ALS, and her caretaker, Karola, who, with the tacit approval of Bettina, has become a second wife to Emil. Among their neighbors is Emil’s former boss, renowned spymaster Markus Wolf (one of the real-life figures in the book). After the murder of Lothar Fischer, his friend and co-conspirator, Emil reaches out to CIA agent Claire Saylor, who has been dispatched to East Germany in hopes of learning the identity of a mole at Langley. He promises to swap her crucial information in return for her getting himself, Bettina, and Karola—who proves to be a great partner in surprising other ways—to freedom. In a kind of woodlands pas de deux, Claire (the protagonist of Fesperman's 2021 gem, The Cover Wife ) becomes increasingly invested in Emil’s cause. Until the thrilling climax, what’s at stake—what the pitched strategic battles are about—is treated almost as an afterthought. It's the gamesmanship that matters most. Emil's secret meetings with Wolf have the color and bounce of a much finer wine than the one they’re drinking. A local cop bonds with Emil even as he is being played by him. When a recently retired spy named Clark Baucom says to Claire, “This is all getting pretty complicated,” she’s not at all unhappy about that.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-593-32160-7

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | ESPIONAGE | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | GENERAL FICTION

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‘Deadly Pleasures’ Reveals Barry Awards Finalists

by Alex Michaelides ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2024

More style than substance.

Michaelides takes a literary turn in his latest novel, employing an unreliable narrator, the structure of classical drama, and a self-conscious eye to dismantling the locked-room mystery.

The novel starts off with a murder, and with seven people trapped on an isolated Greek island lashed by a "wild, unpredictable Greek wind." The narrator, soon established as Elliot Chase, then zooms out to address the reader directly, introducing the players—most importantly movie star Lana Farrar. We meet her husband, Jason Miller, her son, Leo, and her friend Kate Crosby, a theater actress. We learn about her rise to fame and her older first husband, Otto Krantz, a Hollywood producer. We learn about Kate’s possibly stalling career and Leo’s plan to apply to acting schools against his mother’s wishes. We learn about Jason’s obsession with guns. And in fragments and shards, we learn about Elliot: his painful childhood; his May–September relationship with an older female writer, now dead; his passion for the theater, where he learned “to change everything about [himself]” to fit in. Though he isn't present in every scene, he conveys each piece of the story leading up to the murder as if he were an omniscient narrator, capable of accessing every character's interior perspective. When he gets to the climax, there is, indeed, a shooting. There is, indeed, a motive. And there is, of course, a twist. The atmosphere of the novel, set mostly on this wild Greek island, echoes strongly the classical tragedies of Greece. The characters are types. The emotions are operatic. And the tragedy, of course, leads us to question the idea of fate. Michaelides seems also to be dipping into the world of Edgar Allan Poe, offering an unreliable narrator who feels more like a literary exercise. As an exploration of genre, it’s really quite fascinating. As a thriller, it’s not particularly surprising.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024

ISBN: 9781250758989

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023

SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | GENERAL FICTION

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by Alex Michaelides

THE SILENT PATIENT

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

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book review winter work

StarTribune

Review: 'winter work,' by dan fesperman.

Many a Berlin-set spy novel comprises a tale of two cities which plays out during the heated tensions of the Cold War. Dan Fesperman's latest spy thriller, "Winter Work," offers a refreshing variant on this by immersing its reader in the murky corners and wooded surroundings of the German capital at a brief yet pivotal stage in the city's history seldom depicted in fiction.

It is February 1990 and the Cold War is thawing. The Wall has recently fallen, East Germany is coming undone, and Stasi agents are either lying low or selling state secrets to the highest bidder. One disaffected Stasi agent, Emil Grimm, finds himself with other matters to think about when he comes across the body of his neighbor and colleague, Lothar Fischer, near his dacha in a patch of forest north of Berlin.

Two officers on the scene reveal their differences: One young detective is determined to catch a killer; the other is more concerned about fighting the new political order. Emil's priorities are twofold: He needs to complete a high-stakes mission that he and Lothar started, and he has to find a CIA agent he can trust — one with whom he can barter a file of sensitive information in exchange for safe harbor and a new start for himself, his sickly wife, and her caretaker.

That agent turns out to be Claire Saylor, who is in Berlin as part of a "mop-up action" against her agency's defeated enemies. When she first makes contact with Emil there is inevitable discomfort — they are "two people trained to mistrust, searching for any sign that it might be safe to do otherwise." In time, though, they suspend their doubts, pool their resources and set out to ensnare several particularly vengeful "comrades in arms."

"Winter Work" is a gripping, tightly plotted old-school spy novel. As the Baltimore-based writer informs us in his acknowledgments, it is also fiction born of historical fact: One plot strand takes its origins from a genuine CIA operation, and some of the characters, such as spy supremo Markus Wolf, are incarnations of real-life figures. Claire makes a welcome return from Fesperman's last book, "The Cover Wife," as does another character whose true identity is cannily kept under wraps until a decisive moment.

Occasionally Fesperman's prose comes across as either lofty (men are "fellows") or perfunctory ("his eyes as cold as January"). And despite all the dark deeds and cloak-and-dagger intrigue, the book lacks both the subtlety and the complexity of a more nuanced John le Carré work.

However, there is still a great deal to relish, not least a number of precision-tooled set pieces, from a taut safe-breaking scene to an exciting assault on a safe house. Berlin — "spying's most storied theme park" — is vividly rendered, as is a time of convulsive change and the hopes, anxieties and machinations of those caught up in the chaos.

Malcolm Forbes has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Winter Work

By: Dan Fesperman

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 352 pages, $28.

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BookBrowse Reviews Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

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Winter Work

by Dan Fesperman

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

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book review winter work

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A thrilling tale of espionage set in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Dan Fesperman's novel Winter Work is set during the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which sparked the reunification of East and West Germany about a year later. After World War II, East Germany was sealed behind the Iron Curtain and became a police state similar to the USSR. Loyalty to the state was everything, and neighbor spied upon neighbor; the atmosphere was one of constant fear and paranoia. As Fesperman writes, "Buy a book and someone always had to know which one, and then made a note of it. Make a phone call and you assumed it was overheard. Say something critical, even in passing or in jest, and perhaps someone would get the wrong idea. If you heard nothing about it later, was that good or was that worrisome?" The Stasi, East Germany's secret police, was responsible for the enforcement of the loyalty requirement. At one point, the organization is thought to have had about 90,000 employees and 170,000 informants (see Beyond the Book ). All this changed in little more than the blink of an eye. Although discontent had been building for decades, the dismantling of East Germany's system of government happened in just a few months. One result of the rapid collapse was the demise of the Stasi, which in turn initiated a mad scramble by the United States' CIA and the USSR's KGB to snap up as many of the organization's secret files as possible (the KGB so it could leverage operatives already in place, the CIA to expose them). Both offered payment and sometimes relocation to former Stasi officials in exchange for information. The protagonist of Winter Work is one such Stasi officer. Fifty-seven-year-old spymaster Emil Grimm fears he'll face imprisonment for his past actions if he can't dig up some valuable material to give the CIA; he's hoping for amnesty and a new identity and life in the USA. He and a coworker, Lothar Fischer, have uncovered exactly what they need to ensure their security, but Lothar is murdered before they can establish contact with the CIA. The crime sets off a cat-and-mouse game as Emil seeks to identify the murderer, retrieve the hidden information and place it in the hands of the CIA before he shares Lothar's fate. Claire Saylor (who has appeared in two of Fesperman's other novels, Safe Houses and The Cover Wife ), is a CIA agent tasked with establishing contact with former Stasi personnel and evaluating their proffered information. After an encounter that doesn't go as planned, her superiors doubt her abilities but give her one last chance to succeed. As her storyline merges with Emil's, she bets her career that he's the "real-deal," and aids him despite her boss's objections. There's a lot to love about this novel. First, the author paints a truly vivid portrait of time and place; as the title suggests, the action is set during the winter, and coupled with grim depictions of life in the former Soviet Bloc country, the atmosphere throughout is palpably cold and bleak. Beautifully descriptive phrases (e.g., "A doughnut glaze of ice already coated the shallow end of the lake") pepper the narrative, adding to the effect. Fesperman also captures the chaos that followed the wall's destruction, particularly from the standpoint of those who'd been heavily invested in East Germany's bureaucracy pre-fall. The other highlight is the author's ability to create complex, multi-layered characters. Emil in particular is drawn with nuance, establishing a fine balance between the man who's lost a friend and the man who's a ruthless, calculating spymaster. The only disappointment I had with the book was how some of the minor characters were portrayed. Claire's CIA superiors are cartoonishly hostile, and the bad guys are absolute caricatures. The author is certainly capable of creating characters with depth, so I'm puzzled as to why these are so poorly drawn. Fortunately, their appearances are brief, and their flatness doesn't detract from my overall opinion of the novel. Although the book isn't exactly a page-turner, the narrative pace is excellent and I found the story engaging from start to finish. The plot is complicated with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing, but not so intricate that it becomes confusing. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed Winter Work . Its focus on a pivotal moment in world history makes this a great selection for anyone interested in the time period, and its complex plot will appeal to readers who enjoy espionage thrillers.

book review winter work

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Beyond the Book:    East Germany's Secret Police: The Stasi

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book review winter work

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall --- from the acclaimed author of THE COVER WIFE.

On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.

Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She'll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe.

With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows. 

book review winter work

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

  • Publication Date: December 12, 2023
  • Genres: Fiction , Suspense , Thriller
  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage
  • ISBN-10: 0593466950
  • ISBN-13: 9780593466957

book review winter work

Author Dan Fesperman

Winter Work

Now available.

The Berlin Wall has fallen and in the ensuing power vacuum, a former Stasi officer and a CIA agent must fight for their lives.

O n a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. If it were a few months earlier, he would have known just what to do. But now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were actively involved in a final clandestine mission. Now Emil must finish the job alone and on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.

Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor is sent to Berlin to contact a ranking Stasi officer, although details of her mission are suspiciously sketchy and her superior seems to have a hidden agenda. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she has been led to believe. With the rules of the game changing quickly, and as their two missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy lurking in the shadows.

“Superb… Cold War-era spy fiction doesn’t get much better than this.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An engrossing, deep-in-the-weeds thriller.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Dan Fesperman is one of my favorite thriller writers, and Winter Work is a brilliant addition to his magnificent oeuvre. Intelligently written and plotted, based on fact as gripping as any fiction and only improved by Fesperman’s deft writing, Winter Work left me spellbound and hungry for another pass at his older books to relive these intense adventures.” —Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Sierra Six

“ Winter Work is just fantastic. With a meticulous eye for detail and a true feel for the unsettled tension of the times, Fesperman pulls the reader deep into the chilly world of an empire crashing with an utterly compelling story. Out-of-work Stasi officer Emil Grimm is one of the best characters I’ve read in years.” —Olen Steinhauer, New York Times best-selling author of The Last Tourist

“ Winter Work vividly captures those chaotic first months after the Berlin Wall came down, with East Germany in free fall and once feared Stasi officers running for cover—into the hands of their former enemies. An entertaining thriller about a society turned upside down.” —Joseph Kanon, New York Times best-selling author of Istanbul Passage and The Good German

“Thanks to real texture and substance, based on an actual, famed CIA operation, this tale is both remarkable and unconventional. It’s a prize to be savored. Enjoy.” —Steve Berry, New York Times best-selling author of The Omega Factor

“So fluent, so clever. Fesperman brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of post-Communist Europe. Winter Work confirms that he belongs alongside Joseph Kanon and David Ignatius in the front rank of American spy novelists.” —Charles Cumming, author of the UK best-seller, Box 88

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Winter Work by Dan Fesperman- Spy Thriller Review

book review winter work

Spy Book Review by Shane ‘C' Whaley – Station V

Fesperman not only riffs off this operation, which was dubbed one of the CIA’s greatest triumphs, but he also peppers the book with expertly researched elements of East German life to give it that air of authenticity. It is worth noting that Dan Fesperman worked in Berlin during the early nineties as the foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, and he draws on that experience to expertly create the Berlin of 1990. Shane Whaley – Spybrary

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Those readers who enjoy a well-crafted cold war Berlin spy novel have been spoiled rotten this year. Three of the top American spy writers working today, thats Messrs Kanon, Vidich, and now Dan Fesperman, have published spy stories set in that era and in that city.

Following on from Berlin Exchange and The Matchmaker – A Spy in Berlin, I was keen to get stuck into Fesperman’s latest book, Winter Work. The story is set in 1990. East Germany is collapsing and in chaos, soon to become a ghost state. Our protagonist, ex-Stasi officer Emil Grimm discovers the body of his neighbour in the forest where they live, just north of Berlin. Both officers served in the HVA, the Stasi’s foreign intelligence service headed by the infamous ‘man without a face’ Markus Wolf.

Grimm suspects foul play, which sets in place a chain of events that sees the former colonel ‘finishing off the job alone’ that he started working on with his neighbour, the now deceased Lothar. CIA agent Clare Saylor is ordered to Berlin to contact a ranking Stasi officer in the race for Stasi secrets. Her mission and that of Grimm’s intersect to give us a gripping, suspenseful yet plausible spy which involves the crafty old spymaster Markus Wolf himself.

I write plausible because the plot in Winter Work is based on and inspired by real-life events. Watching the Stasi offices in Berlin being ransacked by angry East Germans on his television, the then President, Bush the Elder stated, ‘I hope we are getting some of that!’ This led to Operation Rosenholz, designed to grab as many of these secrets as possible, with the main prize being a list of the agents working for the HVA in the West. Fesperman not only riffs off this operation, which was dubbed one of the CIA’s greatest triumphs, but he also peppers the book with expertly researched elements of East German life to give it that air of authenticity. Whether it is a brand of DDR cigarettes or ‘kaffee komplett’, which is the East German name for coffee with milk and sugar. It is worth noting that Dan Fesperman worked in Berlin during the early nineties as the foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, and he draws on that experience to expertly create Berlin in 1990. Winter Worl includes the usual trope of the spy not telling their superior everything and acting alone in the field. In this case, CIA officer Clare Saylor forms a bond with Grimm and veteran CIA agent Baucom. But it does work, it does not feel forced; Saylor genuinely cares for the East German. That also goes for me as a reader. Fesperman’s talent for creating convincing characters had me rooting for the ex-Stasi officer.  Fesperman plays with our emotions, though, as Grimm recalls a story from his past where he sought vengeance on a nosey neighbor which made me question whether I should be backing the protagonist.

There is limited action in this spy story which suits me just fine.  Regular readers know I prefer the more gritty, realistic side of spy fiction.  Yuri Volkov provides the action, a hired KGB hood. Without veering into Spoilerstrasse, there is one particularly gruesome murder which cranks up the suspense of this story, this is not the type of KGB agent who fires a bullet into the back of your head. That would be too neat and easy for this assassin. He is hot on the heels of Grimm, leaving the reader to wonder how this will play out. Fesperman teases us  until the final page.

If you enjoy engaging realistic, cerebral cold war spy reads, then Winter Work is for you and should sit proudly alongside Vidich and Kanon’s 2022 Berlin offerings in your spy bookcase.

book review winter work

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Winter Work

By dan fesperman, by dan fesperman read by dan fesperman, category: spy novels | suspense & thriller, category: spy novels | suspense & thriller | audiobooks.

Dec 12, 2023 | ISBN 9780593466957 | 5-3/16 x 8 --> | ISBN 9780593466957 --> Buy

Jul 12, 2022 | ISBN 9780593321607 | 6-1/4 x 9-1/4 --> | ISBN 9780593321607 --> Buy

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Jul 12, 2022 | 712 Minutes | ISBN 9780593591956 --> Buy

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Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Dec 12, 2023 | ISBN 9780593466957

Jul 12, 2022 | ISBN 9780593321607

Jul 12, 2022 | ISBN 9780593321614

Jul 12, 2022 | ISBN 9780593591956

712 Minutes

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About Winter Work

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall—from the acclaimed author of The Cover Wife On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.   Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She’ll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe.   With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows. 

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall—from the acclaimed author of The Cover Wife “Fesperman accurately depicts the corrosive effect of life under a surveillance society, debasing both the watchers and the watched…. Most Cold War spy novels focus on the Manichaean ideological struggle between East and West; this one successfully explores a grayer era.” —Ben Macintyre, The New York Times On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day. Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She’ll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe. With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows.

Listen to a sample from Winter Work

Also by dan fesperman.

The Cover Wife

About Dan Fesperman

DAN FESPERMAN’s travels as a journalist and novelist have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won The Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger award for best first crime novel, The Small… More about Dan Fesperman

Product Details

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BEST OF THE YEAR: Amazon’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2022 • Amazon Editor’s Choice • Oprah Daily’s Favorite Books of 2022 “This masterful historical thriller blends espionage, domestic drama, and murder. In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the final coda to the Cold War and ushered in massive geopolitical and social change. . . . This evocative murder mystery vividly captures what happened on the Eastern side of the wall on a political level—including how the cache of secrets ultimately found its way to the CIA—and a personal one, from the perspective of an unusual protagonist, a sympathetic East German spy with a complicated and messy home life.” — Oprah Daily , “Our Favorite Books of 2022” “ Winter Work is a gripping, tightly plotted old-school spy novel. . . . Claire [Saylor] makes a welcome return from Fesperman’s last book, The Cover Wife. . . . Berlin—’spying’s most storied theme park’—is vividly rendered, as is a time of convulsive change and the hopes, anxieties, and machinations of those caught up in the chaos.” — Minneapolis Star-Tribune “[A] well-paced thriller. . . . Fesperman accurately depicts the corrosive effect of life under a surveillance society, debasing both the watchers and the watched. . . . Most Cold War spy novels focus on the Manichaean ideological struggle between East and West; this one successfully explores a grayer era.” —Ben Macintyre, The New York Times “ Winter Work is Mr. Fesperman’s 13th novel of spycraft and international intrigue. Like its predecessors, it does not disappoint.” — The Wall Street Journal “A well-crafted examination of truth, honor, and loyalty in a shifting world.”  — The Christian Science Monitor , “Ten Best Books of July” “The story leads to an exciting conclusion—a thoroughly surprising spin on the typical spies-on-the-run finale—but it is the relationships among the principals that give the novel its depth andpower. Like Joseph Kanon in The Berlin Exchange , Fesperman builds his story around the inner lives of his characters, an approach that transforms typical espionage tropes into universal human drama.” — Booklist *starred* “[A] superb spy thriller. . . . The action builds to a deeply satisfying denouement. Cold War-era spy fiction doesn’t get much better than this.” — Publishers Weekly *starred*   “An engrossing, deep-in-the-weeds thriller.” — Kirkus Reviews *starred* “Dan Fesperman is one of my favorite thriller writers, and Winter Work is a brilliant addition to his magnificent oeuvre. Intelligently written and plotted, based on fact as gripping as any fiction and only improved by Fesperman’s deft writing, Winter Work left me spellbound and hungry for another pass at his older books to relive these intense adventures.” —Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Sierra Six “ Winter Work vividly captures those chaotic first months after the Berlin Wall came down, with East Germany in free fall and once feared Stasi officers running for cover—into the hands of their former enemies. An entertaining thriller about a society turned upside down.” —Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author of Istanbul Passage and The Good German “ Winter Work is just fantastic. With a meticulous eye for detail and a true feel for the unsettled tension of the times, Fesperman pulls the reader deep into the chilly world of an empire crashing with an utterly compelling story. Out-of-work Stasi officer Emil Grimm is one of the best characters I’ve read in years.” —Olen Steinhauer, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Tourist

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“Winter Work” by Dan Fesperman – A Melee for Dying Secrets

“Winter Work” by Dan Fesperman (Header image)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

  • Short Summary

Dan Fesperman has gained immense amounts of knowledge from his work as an international reporter, and he has put it to excellent use for his career as a writer, penning one bestselling thriller after the next. In his latest novel, Winter’s Work , he tells the story of two agents on different sides of the Cold War, each tasked with their own dangerous assignment, and the unexpected ways in which their fates intersect.

Table of contents

Dan fesperman heats up the cold war, portrait of an era in winter work, a cacophony of spies, the final verdict.

Never was there a time in human history when espionage prospered as much as it has during the Cold War. Those short few decades gave rise to so many techniques and prominent masters, we’re still sifting through the secrets they left behind, whether they escaped, were extradited, imprisoned, or executed. In Winter Work by Dan Fesperman , we are taken to the very end of said war, where chaos begins to reign supreme.

The novel begins right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and introduces us to Emil Grimm, a Stasi colonel who feels none too welcome in the new world order he’s about to become part of. Perhaps more alarmingly, he just discovered the body of his neighbour, Lothar, a fellow Stasi officer. Despite the scene looking like suicide, Emil knows better; he’s looking at a cold-blooded murder.

A few months earlier, things would have been different, and he would have known what to do. Now, however, his status as a Stasi is his greatest liability. Him and Lothar were involved in a clandestine mission of great importance, and despite his partner’s untimely demise, Emil is hell-bent on finishing the job alone, in a world where all allegiances don’t mean much anymore.

On the other side of the fallen curtain, the CIA agent Claire Saylor finds herself in Berlin to assist with the mopping up of her agency’s East German opponents. Upon her arrival she receives her assignment, the entire reason she was sent for in the first place: to become the sole designated contact for an extremely high-ranking foreign intelligence officer.

Unfortunately for Claire, her first rendez-vous already turns sour, leading to a near catastrophe right from the start. With little information to work with, she realizes she has found herself in a rather delicate situation, and it doesn’t help one bit that her path is about to intersect with Emil’s in ways neither of them could have possibly predicted.

I guess it wouldn’t be much of a revelation if I said that I myself never witnessed the Cold War, just like many of you I’m certain. The amount of people who have lived through and remember those days is drastically diminishing, but I feel like overall, they’ve done a tremendous job at chronicling the events of those tense few decades, whether through official documents or word-of-mouth.

I think I speak for many people when I say that it would be interesting to go back in time as a simple observer, just to see and feel what it was like to live in a world which, from today’s modern perspective, seems so distant and drastically-different. While nothing could actually equal a time machine, Dan Fesperman certainly tries his best to turn Winter Work into something of the kind.

From the first few pages it becomes blatantly obvious that the author must have conducted an incredible amount of research into the subject, also likely drawing from his own experiences as well (he was born in 1955). He has a true talent for depicting settings with the sort of care and detail one can only achieve when they have a crystal-clear picture of what they’re trying to convey.

Naturally, the author explores both sides of the Cold War , as is mandated by the nature of the topic itself. While I can’t personally vouch for the accuracy of what he has shown here, I can say that he illustrates it all with such convincing specifics that it feels truly realistic, as if the author decided to novelize a history book.

Naturally, with this novel being an espionage thriller, there are limits to how much Dan Fesperman can show of such a complicated period in human history, but rest assured, the action always lines up with the standards and expectations he creates with his portrayal of the era. Like I said before, nothing can really beat a time machine, but this novel comes about as close as one could get.

Even he does take some detours here and there for the sake of world-building, Dan Fesperman mostly allows it to happen naturally through the development of the plot and the actions of the many characters we come across. Some are more important than others, quite obviously, but all of them come together and play an irreplaceable role in making this espionage novel an actual thriller.

The author captured quite well in Winter Work what I imagine must have been an incredibly turbulent time in intelligence agencies, with officers running for cover left and right, looking for new masters and engineering final betrayals. One can never be certain of the true intentions behind anyone’s words or actions, and the reader is pushed to become, in a sense, a detective, trying to figure out what game is truly being played behind the curtains.

I will admit, some of the characters weren’t as fleshed out as I would have liked them to be, leaving a few important blanks to fill in regarding their motivations and back stories. On the other hand, I completely understand the need to trim the fat away, so-to-speak, and maintain the novel’s rapid pace. Additionally, I can’t say I don’t entirely appreciate the author leaving some things up to my imagination.

Emil and Claire make for excellent protagonists, though I’d have to say I found the former a lot more intriguing, if only for the fact that he is shrouded in mystery, one we must try and decipher by his actions, which sometimes seem a little senseless until further down the line. This isn’t to say Claire had nothing to offer, but I clearly found myself drawn to one more than the other.

Generally-speaking, I’m not a huge fan of reading espionage novels with a huge cast of characters ( John le Carre made sure of that), but in this novel it actually works because it’s approached in the right way. We’re always made aware of whether someone is important or forgettable, making it much easier to keep track of the right people and watch as their curved roads intersect at the unlikeliest of places, leading to some of the more exciting showdowns I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a spy novel.

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman is a top-notch Cold War espionage thriller , one which succeeds in transporting the reader back through time with its moving depiction of settings and characters, as well as in offering some of the more exciting clashes between intelligence agencies in recent memory.

If you’re a fan of Cold War spy novels and are in search of a quality new addition to your collection, then I think this book will be straight up your alley.

Dan Fesperman (Author)

Dan Fesperman

Dan Fesperman is a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun, but more importantly, the author of several thrillers, many inspired by his own work on international assignments. He is the recipient of the 1999 The John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first novel for Lie in the Dark , the 2003 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller for The Small Boat of Great Sorrows , and the 2006 Hammett Prize for The Prisoner of Guantanamo .

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David Ben Efraim (Page Image)

David Ben Efraim (Reviewer)

David Ben Efraim is a book reviewer living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and co-owner of Bookwormex , as well as the Quick Book Reviews blog, along with Yakov Ben Efraim. With a love for literature reaching across all genres (except romance), he has embarked on the quest to share its wonders with the world by helping people find their way to books which truly speak to them, whether they be modern sensations or relics from a bygone era.

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The Best Winter Books for Hardcore Chionophiles

These snowy, stormy, ice-capped books are sure to satisfy those looking for perfectly atmospheric wintertime reads..

Spring is just around the corner in the Northern Hemisphere, but many of us are still longing for the ice and snow that much of the nation expected but didn’t get this year. Diehard fans of winter, known in scientific circles as chionophiles, thrive in the colder months and love how mesmerizingly still and quiet the world becomes after a snow squall.

That appreciation doesn’t have to extend to suiting up and stomping around in the slush, of course. Many chionophiles have a healthy respect for the awesome power of winter—the dangers inherent in ice slicks and blizzards or frostbite’s nip. There’s nothing wrong with experiencing snow’s sparkle from inside one’s cozy home, perhaps through a window or maybe even in the pages of a great book.

If you don’t want winter to end and could do with a little—or a lot—more snow in your life, our list of the best books set in winter and icy Fantasy fiction will keep you feeling frosty even after spring has sprung.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

book review winter work

File The Bear and the Nightingale under books that make readers feel like they’re living in a wintery fairytale. Katherine Arden’s beloved series, the Winternight Trilogy, is a masterpiece that takes readers into a Russian version of Frozen’s Arendale. In a land consumed by winter, Vasilia loves telling stories about Frost, the god of death who claims souls in the night. When her new stepmother forbids the family from working their pagan rituals, crops fail and misfortune follows. Arden’s Fantasy novel is beautifully written with characters that resist the expectations placed on women who just want to exist on their own terms.

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

book review winter work

The Wolf and the Woodsman is an atmospheric Fantasy novel that shines light on the antisemitism of medieval Hungary. In a snow-touched land, a kingdom is corrupted by a fanatical king whose threat toward pagans and the Yehuli is deeply felt. When soldiers come to claim Evike’s as a sacrifice, the pagan girl’s people surrender her to Gaspar, the disgraced prince leading the Woodsmen. Reid’s writing is so beautiful and evocative that readers will feel as if they’re standing in the falling snow. With its deeply romantic gestures between enemies and ice-chilled lovers, this book will satisfy the most ardent chionophiles.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

book review winter work

Six of Crows is Leigh Bardugo’s most celebrated Young Adult novel, and it was the characters from this two-book series that drew fans to the Netflix adaptation of Shadow & Bone. In the industrial city of Ketterdam, criminals, spies, thieves and convicts come together to form a group of outcasts planning a near-impossible heist that could make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Bardugo weaves a dark, gloomy world into being, populating it with hardened characters who slowly reveal their most personal, vulnerable selves.

A Wolf for a Spell by Karah Sutton

book review winter work

A Wolf for a Spell slowly unfolds, first in a frost-touched fairytale of deadly forests that becomes a beautiful story of loving friendships and complex characters. This Slavic-inspired Middle Grade Fantasy is so popular because it tells classical stories in the vein of the Percy Jackson novels. Here, readers learn how far and how deep magic can impact three destinies in cozy prose perfect for long winter days.

Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

book review winter work

Once Upon a Broken Heart is BookTok’s favorite fairy tale romance series for good reason. Stephanie Garber has imagined a truly romantic world that feels like Alice Wonderland as told by Taylor Swift. This book tells the story of Evangeline Fox, who has always believed in true love and happy endings. Heartbroken and healing from a shattered dream, she makes a deal with the wicked and tragic Prince of Hearts, Jacks. Garber writes with broad strokes, painting a whimsical winter wonderland full of grand parties, immortals who act like scoundrels and some truly absorbing romantic tension.

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

A minimalist book cover with an arctic fox head

Tanya Tagaq, the famed Inuit throat singer, writes an enthralling collection of stories, memories and poetry, collected in Split Tooth . Inspired by Tagaq’s time as a young girl in Canada’s ice-cold Nunavut territory during the 1970s, the narratives in Split Tooth confront the personal struggles of the author and her community, from government relocation and sexual abuse to alcoholism. But Tagaq turns tragic experiences into one of magical realism that evokes the grand, epic beauty of Inuit mythology and the stories of the Arctic.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

book review winter work

The Only Good Indians is one of those books destined to become a classic horror novel that readers will forever obsess over. It’s a horrifying tale of what happens when four Native American men go on a forbidden elk hunt during a winter storm and end up fighting for their lives. Graham Jones writes tense, gory horror with prose that digs deep into the most human of places.

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

book review winter work

Charlotte McConaghy’s literary thriller, Once There Were Wolves , calls to mind both the historical fairy tale narratives surrounding wolves and the modern anxieties humanity spins about them. In the snowy wilderness of the Scottish Highlands, Inti and her twin sister lead biologists in introducing a pack of gray wolves into the land. Hardened by a violent past, the wolves and the wilderness push Inti to be a softer, more vulnerable version of herself. When the town blames the wolves for a murder, she is desperate to save the wild, beautiful animals she’s grown to love.

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

book review winter work

Hafsah Faizal is one of the best writers in Young Adult fiction in 2024. Her debut, We Hunt the Flame , plays with canonical Fantasy tropes while bringing a fresh—and surprisingly fun—perspective to the genre. In an ancient Arabia-inspired land that has been cursed to suffer endless winter, a young woman disguised as a cloaked hunter goes on a quest to save her people from starvation. The assassin tasked to thwart her is forced to choose between the loyalty he feels toward his autocratic father and the bonds he forms with unexpected friends. Faizal writes fiercely, making for an engaging wintery read.

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

book review winter work

The follow-up to Heather Fawcett’s whimsical fantasy novel, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries , is another adventure featuring witty faerie academics and light academia. Emily Wilde and her former rival, Wendell Bambleby, journey to the snow-capped Austrian Alps in the hope of unlocking a map that will lead them to the faerie realms. The overt grumpiness of Emily and her posh-yet-deadly love interest is, as usual, delightful in print, but it’s worth pointing out that what’s even better is reading a tale of neurodivergent characters who understand each other on a level no one else can. Fawcett’s world building is as beautiful as ever against a backdrop of snowy mountains and a court of winter faeries.

The Best Winter Books for Hardcore Chionophiles

  • SEE ALSO : ‘Suncoast’ Is Another Mediocre Coming-of-Age Movie That Makes Too Many Wrong Choices

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Sold Into a Brothel at 15, a Japanese Girl Finds Strength in Words

“A Woman of Pleasure,” Kiyoko Murata’s first novel to be translated into English, explores the world of sex work in early-20th-century Japan.

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The book cover features an impressionistic watercolor image of an anonymous woman over red and flesh-toned blocks of color.

By V.V. Ganeshananthan

V.V. Ganeshananthan is the author, most recently, of the novel “Brotherless Night” and co-hosts Literary Hub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast about the intersection of literature and the news.

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A WOMAN OF PLEASURE , by Kiyoko Murata. Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter.

When Aoi Ichi learns that her father is coming to visit, she is delighted. The young woman — a child, really — hasn’t seen him since the previous year, when she left their village on the southern Japanese island of Iojima for a mansion in the city of Kumamoto. “There are lots of men/but only one I love/my one and only pa,” she writes in her journal. She buys gifts for him to take to her mother and older sister and sweeps the street in front of her workplace with gusto. But he comes and goes without seeing her, “afraid to look his daughter in the eye.” He’s there only to sign a new promissory note with her employer borrowing more money against her labor, which is sex work.

Such quiet devastation weaves through “A Woman of Pleasure,” the first book to be published in English by the venerated novelist Kiyoko Murata (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter). Like many of the women in this unflinching and humane portrayal of prostitutes in early-20th-century Japan, Ichi comes from a poor rural family; she is the daughter of a sea diver mother and a fisherman father — the latter of whom, desperate to make ends meet, sells her into prostitution when she is 15.

In a brothel in Kumamoto’s licensed quarter, Ichi finds herself under the wing of its highest-earning courtesan, or oiran , the impossibly elegant Shinonome. Tasked with training the younger girl in makeup, manners and grooming, Shinonome finds herself alternately frustrated and charmed by Ichi’s strong will, eventually developing a grudging respect for “the monkey child from the island.”

Before Ichi can begin to entertain customers, though, she must attend the Female Industrial School, where another veteran, Tetsuko, teaches the women of the “pleasure quarter” how to relinquish their “dreadful” regional accents and write elegant letters to clients. One of the novel’s more sympathetic characters, Tetsuko understands the stakes of these lessons: The better her students perform their duties, the sooner they can work off their debts and earn their freedom.

The depictions of life in the brothel are simple, merciless and deeply affecting. New workers are corralled daily into a room nicknamed “the inferno” where they are trained to please men, practicing on the house’s young, unwilling manservants as their peers look on. “Never in her life had she suffered as much as then,” Murata writes of Ichi’s turn. “Her vision had gone cloudy, her eyes seeming to shoot sparks as something inside her burned and charred.”

But even as the brothel takes Ichi’s innocence, the school empowers her with a means of self-expression: a journal whose blunt, poetic entries punctuate the story with private revelations of anger, grief and hope. In Tetsuko’s classroom, the novel also nimbly shifts into a broader register, exploring the larger forces shaping these women’s lives.

One example is the Livestock Emancipation Law, which technically granted prostitutes freedom using the language of animals, though it was never enforced. Like cows or horses, it reasoned, sex workers could not be expected to repay their debts. Even “New Greater Learning for Women,” an 1899 book by the writer and philosopher Fukuzawa Yukichi that extolled the study of physical education and physics for both sexes, contained a classist caveat: Working girls are “excluded from discussion because they are not human to begin with.”

This novel, of course, is committed to the opposite principle. Small rebellions bloom as the prostitutes grow more confident in their rights. Ichi and her peers find hope in organized resistance, with their collective humanity in the face of brutality forming Murata’s irrefutable and beautiful argument.

A WOMAN OF PLEASURE | By Kiyoko Murata. Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. | Counterpoint | 309 pp. | Paperback, $17.95

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    DAN FESPERMAN served as a foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, based in Berlin.His coverage of the siege of Sarajevo led to his debut novel, Lie in the Dark, which won Britain's John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel.Subsequent books have won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, the Dashiell Hammett Prize from the International Association of ...

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  28. Book Review: 'A Woman of Pleasure,' by Kiyoko Murata

    "A Woman of Pleasure," Kiyoko Murata's first novel to be translated into English, explores the world of sex work in early-20th-century Japan. By V.V. Ganeshananthan V.V. Ganeshananthan is ...