The Prodigal Spy - by Joseph Kanon (Paperback)

About the Book

Twenty years after defecting to the Soviet Union, a U.S. government employee asks his son to clear his name. The father, Walter Kotlar, fled while being investigated by Senator McCarthy and now he is ready to spill the beans on people in the U.S. government who framed him.

Book Synopsis

In a time of accusations, treachery and lies, some secrets were heartbreaking....

Others were deadly.

Once, Nick Kotlar tried to save his father. From the angry questions. From the accusations. From a piece of evidence that only Nick knew about and that he destroyed--for his father. But in the Red Scare of 1950 Walter Kotlar could not be saved. Branded a spy, he fled the country, leaving behind a wife, a young son--and a key witness lying dead below her D.C. hotel room.

Now, twenty years later, Nick will get a second chance. Because a beautiful journalist has brought a message from his long-lost father, and Nick will follow her into Soviet-occupied Prague for a painful reunion. Confronting a father he barely remembers and a secret that could change everything, Nick knows he must return to the place where it all began: to unravel a lie, to penetrate a deadly conspiracy, and to expose the one person who knew the truth--and watched a family be destroyed.

Review Quotes

"An edgy spy thriller . . . [and] a tale of love--between father and son, man and woman--set against a foreboding background that is poignant and imminently believable. . . . Captivating."--Denver Post

"Compelling . . . intriguing . . . superb . . . reads beautifully and convinces utterly."--Wall Street Journal

"Intriguing...Kanon wonderfully conveys the paranoia of the times. . . . The Prodigal Spy has a richness of emotional layers usually not found in espionage novels." --USA Today

"Vivid . . . tense . . . reheats the Cold War with history, mystery and a political blast from the past."--People

"Kanon does a fine job . . . blending history, fiction, suspense and romance . . . but what he does the best is to turn more than a few moments in our history into a personal story that shows the reality of what we have done and can do to each other."--Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

About the Author

Joseph Kanon is the internationally bestselling author of eight novels, which have been published in twenty-four languages, including: Los Alamos, which won the Edgar Award for best first novel, The Good German, which was made into a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, The Prodigal Spy, Alibi, which earned Kanon the Hammett Award of the International Association of Crime Writers, Istanbul Passage, and Leaving Berlin. He is also a recipient of the Anne Frank Human Writers Award for his writings on the aftermath of the Holocaust. He lives in New York City with his wife, literary agent Robin Straus. They have two sons.