This story of discovery, romance, and intrigue is set in Berlin
shortly after the fall of the Wall. Anthony Hanbury, a Canadian
diplomat pursuing a desultory career, is assigned as consul to
Berlin. Having lived in Berlin as a student during the sixties, he
asks for this assignment twenty-five years later to renew contact
both with the city gripped by the tumultuous changes of German
reunification and with people he once knew.
On the surface Hanbury's assignment unfolds routinely. Behind
the scenes, however, his activities generate forces of suspicion.
Only in the new Berlin where the Wall is gone but East-West
divisions continue, where the Cold War's remnants linger and a
totalitarian regime's entrails are available for scavenging could
Hanbury's fate take the calamitous turn it does.
Bracketing the story is Hanbury's previous boss, Irving Heywood,
a man with a zest for Service gossip. In a position of influence at
headquarters in Ottawa and piqued by the Berlin events, he
unwillingly becomes an agent in the consul's mysterious
downfall.