"A beautifully textured exploration of relationships between husbands and wives, parents and sons, friends and lovers. Love, in its harsh and dreadful facets, is portrayed as a powerful force, capable of fusing hearts but also of destroying them. . . . The taut drama of history, interlaced with the emotional sagas of these marvelously drawn figures, makes for a very satisfying narrative." Library Journal, starred review From the author of City Below and Prince of Peace, a suspenseful drama of family and politics set in Cold War Berlin. Missed signals, cloaked motives, false postures, and panicked responses echo tragically across borders and generations when, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a father and son recount the tense events of nearly thirty years before. In 1961, just before the Wall rises, three teenagers from an American school in West Germany travel to the Communist side of the divided city to join a rally. Unknown to them, their parents have unfinished business reaching back to World War II which will pull the teens into the vortex of an international incident.

How is it possible to forget the love of your life? Zach Calvert has no memory of his last three years as a Navy pilot. And for the most part, he’s resigned himself to that. He’s content with his new life as the sheriff of his hometown, happy that his small daughter lives close by. But everything changes when he discovers he has a five-year-old son and a lover he can’t remember.

From a New York Times–bestselling author, a “gripping and beautifully written” novel of love and family set against the backdrop of Cold War Berlin (Bookpage). Berlin, 1961. Days before the Wall rises, three teenagers from an American school in West Germany travel to the Communist side of the divided city to join a May Day rally. One of them has brought along a flight bag belonging to his father, a US intelligence officer. Before long, the teens are in the custody of the secret East German police, the notorious Stasi. Unbeknownst to them, their parents have unfinished business, reaching back to World War II, which will pull the three friends into the vortex of an international incident. Told through flashbacks by alternating narrators, Secret Father is a novel of missed signals, cloaked motives, false postures, and panicked responses that tragically echo across borders and generations. Like the classic period thrillers of Graham Greene, James Carroll’s politically charged coming-of-age tale provides a “somber and evocative look at some of the most frightening times in one of the most frightening places in the Cold War” (Kirkus Reviews). “Carroll writes with rich, lyrical ease,” raves Publishers Weekly. “His characters are richly drawn, and the pieces of his impeccably paced story fit together with the cool precision of a Mercedes-Benz.”

Left for dead, spy Jacob Lomax had no recollection of who he was or who had tried to kill him. The only thing he responded to was Grace Renne, and she made his body feel very much alive.… Grace was all too familiar with Jacob's body, but his emotions had always been hidden from her. His sudden appearance on her doorstep had frightened and excited her. Never had she seen this side of him—lethal, but protective. He was the perfect man to keep her and her baby safe from hard-core killers, but did he have the skills to be a proper father, too?

When Declan Keenan begins to clean out his family’s house after his father’s death, he makes an unexpected discovery. His father, a former RCMP Security Service agent, left a videotape message that drops responsibility for resolving an old case into his son’s lap. Unable to refuse his father’s dying wish, Declan begins his search for answers in an attempt to satisfy justice. In the process, the motive, means, and opportunities that led to the 1973 bombing of BOAC Flight 281 are revealed; but so too are the agendas to have the case buried. Solving this thirty-year-old case with its inherent obstacles and challenges is frustratingly elusive, especially when compounded by present-day tragedy and official cover-ups. Despite threats, destruction of evidence, and murder, Declan perseveres, knowing that he must do his utmost to reveal his father’s secret and expose a long hidden truth. This entertaining thriller resonates with the themes of justice and injustice, reconciliation and alienation, and duty and denial—together representing both the admirable and dishonourable aspects of the Canadian national identity.

In this moving and compelling memoir about parent and child, father and daughter, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lucinda Franks discovers that the remote, nearly impassive man she grew up with had in fact been a daring spy behind enemy lines in World War II. Sworn to secrecy, he began revealing details of his wartime activities only in the last years of his life as he became afflicted with Alzheimer's. His exploits revealed a man of remarkable bravado -- posing as a Nazi guard, slipping behind enemy lines to blow up ammunition dumps, and being flown to one of the first concentration camps liberated by the Allies to report on the atrocities found there. My Father's Secret War is an intimate account of Franks coming to know her own father after years of estrangement. Looking back at letters he had written her mother in the early days of WWII, Franks glimpses a loving man full of warmth. But after the grimmest assignments of the war his tone shifts, settling into an all-too-familiar distance. Franks learns about him -- beyond the alcoholism and adultery -- and comes to know the man he once was. Her story is haunting, and beautifully told, even as the tragedy becomes clear: Franks finally comes to know her father, but only as he is slipping further into his illness. Lucinda Franks understands her father as the disease claims him. My Father's Secret War is a triumph of love over secrets, and a tribute to the power of the connection of family.