The Vienna Assignment - Olen Steinhauer

A powerfully atmospheric thriller set during the Cold War from the internationally acclaimed author of THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

Eastern Europe, 1965, and Security Officer Brano Sev, a secretive member of his country's homicide department, has returned home in disgrace from a posting to Austria. As a punishment he is sent to the backwoods village of his birth to interrogate a potential defector only to find himself framed for murder. Assuming this is part of a covert plan devised by his bosses, he allows himself to be pushed into a dramatic flight to the west and the life of an exile in Vienna, a city teeming with scheming expatriates, spies and old enemies.

But Brano soon finds himself lost in a maze of conflicting interests where love and friendship conceal treachery, and where the Cold War game of bluff and double-bluff leaves him manoeuvring in the dark. And, in the end, he learns that loyalty to the cause might be the biggest crime of all.

THE VIENNA ASSIGNMENT is a powerful, atmospheric thriller which perfectly captures the paranoia of Cold War Europe and the terrible dangers facing a man caught up in a game whose rules are constantly changing with deadly consequences.

ISBN: 9780007210879

Pages: 355

Trade paperback

Harper Collins, 2005

Good condition; old spill damage evident but doesn't affect readability

B106