Our Friends in Berlin - Tapa dura

"Our Friends in Berlin brings to the fore all of Quinn’s talents – gripping storylines, plot twists, thorough research and elegant prose." (The Times)

"Wild horses could not have spoilt my enjoyment of this pitch-perfect reimagining of British counter-espionage and anti-fascism during the Blitz. I raced through it – twice... to spend more time with Anthony Quinn’s superb characters... [a] classy, entertaining performance." (Tablet)

"An eye for a plot, a profound gift for character and a faultless sense of period and place: Anthony Quinn was always going to write first-rate thrillers, and Our Friends in Berlin is pure pleasure." (David Hare)

"The best spy novel set in wartime London. A masterpiece... Anthony’s book is wonderful. He is a master at creating page-turning tension. Our Friends in Berlin grips the reader from the very first page and won’t let go. Good authors create period authenticity; superb authors add their own creative mood music to that. Anthony Quinn’s Blitz-battered London is more than black out curtains, blast tape and wrecked buildings, it is an eerie setting of Hitchcockian menace." (Edward Wilson, author of A Very British Ending)

"A masterful evocation of wartime London and the plotting of Nazi sympathisers. Quinn’s storytelling is gripping, his writing delightful. An addictive page-turner that expertly combines both love story and thriller. You won’t want it to end." (David Young, award-winning author of Stasi Child)

"Our Friends in Berlin is an immensely enjoyable Buchanesque adventure... Its descriptions of London under bombardment are vividly sensuous and beautiful... Its characters are intriguing and deftly presented... Most memorably of all, though, the book and its cast are shot through with a persuasive postmodern melancholy, the hard-wired ambivalence that is very much Le Carré rather than Buchan. This sensibility allows the novel to illuminate complex times." (Guardian)

"[A] gripping espionage thriller... An addictive cocktail of action, romance and politics." (Observer)

"Those in search of a smart, tautly rendered, atmospheric beach read should pack a copy now." (Metro)

"A cracking tale of high-stakes espionage and poignant romance. It's elegantly observed, expertly paced and intensely atmospheric." (Mail on Sunday)

"This tale of wartime espionage is clever, perceptive and a very good read... Quinn’s vividly imagined portrait is entirely convincing... This story is beautifully written and elaborately plotted... the plaudits are well deserved." (Literary Review)

‘The best spy novel set in wartime London. A masterpiece’
Edward Wilson, author of A Very British Ending

London, 1941. The city is in blackout, besieged by nightly air raids from Germany. Two strangers are about to meet. Between them they may alter the course of the war.

While the Blitz has united the nation, there is an enemy hiding in plain sight. A group of British citizens is gathering secret information to aid Hitler’s war machine. Jack Hoste has become entangled in this treachery, but he also has a particular mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country.

Hoste soon receives a promising lead. Amy Strallen, who works in a Mayfair marriage bureau, was once close to this elusive figure. Her life is a world away from the machinations of Nazi sympathisers, yet when Hoste pays a visit to Amy’s office, everything changes in a heartbeat.

Breathtakingly tense and trip-wired with surprises, Our Friends in Berlin is inspired by true events. It is a story about deception and loyalty – and about people in love who watch each other as closely as spies.