EXIT BERLIN, by Tim Sebastian (Bantam, $76).
THEY were euphoric days, particularly for the democracy-espousing West. The communist regimes across Europe were falling like nine pins, along with that most graphic symbol of the totalitarian state, the Berlin Wall.
Off to the side, a small group was holding a wake for the end of the Cold War - these were the spy novelists.
But one of the form's brightest lights, BBC correspondent Tim Sebastian, went behind the headlines for this stark tale, set during and immediately after the Berlin Wall was breached.
This was a time when enemies became allies and allies were banished to the other side of the fence, not the best place for James Martin, a British agent in East Germany working for the feared Stasi in the guise of a defector.
Sebastian forgoes the simultaneous episodes around-the-world style of John Le Carre and Tom Clancy for a work driven by Martin's thought processes as he works through the intrigue and betrayal he has suffered.
As the wall tumbles around the Stasi, Martin initiates a mad scramble to discover the traitor passing information, which resulted in the demise of the British agents in East Germany about five years earlier.