An Economist Book of the YearWinner of the 2005 Crime Writer’s Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award“Beautifully researched and rich in incident and intriguing characters, this tour de force on a par with John le Carré has as many twists as a mountain road but is never confusing. Readers will root for the protagonist as he struggles to free his brother’s family.” —Library Journal (starred review)“This is one of those bedside table books with a story so thrilling that you reach for it on waking, before the paper, before coffee, before even bidding good morning to your partner. Henry Porter has done his research so well that you learn much, of strange unvisitable worlds and sinister Cold War crafts, all hitherto closed to all. I was utterly captivated: this book was a total triumph.” —Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa“Clever, gripping and as enjoyably atmospheric of Berlin as a luxury weekend at the Adlon Hotel.” —Philip Kerr, author of Hitler’s Peace“A topnotch Cold War thriller . . . Beautifully researched and rich in incident and intriguing characters, this tour de force on a par with John le Carré has as many twists as a mountain road but is never confusing.” —Ronnie H. Lerpening, Library Journal (starred review)“An accomplished retro-thriller . . . warmly recommended. Henry Porter has fast become one of the masters of the genre.” —David Robson, The Sunday Telegraph“Set against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall in the autumn of 1989, the book takes the reader into the wilderness of mirrors that was Cold War international espionage. A complex, intelligent thriller by a skilful writer at the top of his game.” —from the citation for the 2005 Crime Writer’s Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best adventure/thriller novel in the vein of James Bond“[Porter] continues to breathe new life into spy fiction.” —Bill Greenwell, The Independent“A first-rate thriller . . . Porter sustains an elaborate plot skillfully and portrays memorable, multifaceted characters. But his achievement lies in producing a remarkably comprehensive counterpart in fiction to Anna Funder’s nonfiction study Stasiland, re-creating the paranoid, Kafkaesque state. This gives Brandenburg Gate a richness of texture . . . and exhilaratingly testifies to the thriller genre’s ability to transcend its primary role as entertainment.” —John Dugdale, The Sunday Times (London)“Porter is proving himself more than a match for Le Carré.” —Henry Sutton, Daily Mirror
