Joseph Kanon Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

Los Alamos (1997)
The Prodigal Spy (1998)
The Good German (2001)
Alibi (2005)
Stardust (2009)
Istanbul Passage (2012)
Leaving Berlin (2014)
Defectors (2017)
The Accomplice (2019)
The Berlin Exchange (2022)

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Joseph Kanon Books Overview

Los Alamos

Spring 1945. As work on the first atomic bomb nears completion on a remote mesa in New Mexico, Karl Bruner, a Manhattan Project security officer, is found murdered in nearby Santa Fe. Is Bruner the victim of a violent sexual encounter, as the local police believe, or is his death a crime that threatens to jeopardize the secret of the Project itself? This is the mainspring of Joseph Kanon’s Los Alamos, a supremely original and romantic new thriller that re creates the most compelling real life drama of this century. Michael Connolly, the intelligence officer brought in to crack Bruner’s case and then make it disappear soon discovers that investigating a murder in Los Alamos is anything but routine. In a town so secret it does not officially exist, he must thread his way through a makeshift community of displaced migrs, soldiers, and idealistic scientists for whom murder is, at best, an unwelcome intrusion as they race to end a brutal war. Only when Connolly falls in love and begins an affair with Emma, the enigmatic wife of one of the scientists, does he truly begin to unravel the past associations, tangled sex lives, and conflicting morality at the dark heart of the Project. Interweaving fact and fiction, Los Alamos is at once a powerful novel of historical intrigue and a vivid portrait of those involved in the Manhattan Project: Robert Oppenheimer, its charismatic scientific director; General Groves, its blunt Army commander; and the brilliant team of scientists whose work would change the world forever. Like the invention at its core, Los Alamos is about fusion of loyalty and betrayal, idealism and guilt and its deadly aftermath. Elegantly written and deftly constructed, Los Alamos marks the emergence of a major new storytelling talent.

The Prodigal Spy

Walter Kotlar is the epitome of the American dream, the son of working class immigrants who attends Yale and becomes part of the establishment, but he is caught up in the ’50s fear of the ‘red menace’ and forced to testify before the Committee on Un American Activities. He seems a very unlikely Communist, but before the hearing is concluded he has disappeared defected to the East though not before the chief witness has committed ‘suicide’. 19 years later his son, Nick, receives a message that his father wants to see him in Prague. His first reaction is rejection and denial, but his memories and curiosity combined with a deep attraction for the messenger persuade him to risk the journey only a year after the Russian invasion. He discovers his father to be dying and eager to ‘come home’. He learns too that the events preceding Walter’s defection were not as simplistic as he’d thought, but before he can really work out what had happened his father is dead, probably murdered. Sure now that his father is more victim than villain, Nick knows he can only prove this in America, but he is stuck in a country where rules of evidence and justice are ignored and getting out is not going to be straightforward…

The Good German

With World War II finally ending, Jake Geismar, former Berlin correspondent for CBS, has wangled one of the coveted press slots for the Potsdam Conference. His assignment: a series of articles on the Allied occupation. His personal agenda: to find Lena, the German mistress he left behind at the outbreak of the war. When Jake stumbles on a murder an American soldier washes up on the conference grounds he thinks he has found the key that will unlock his Berlin story. What Jake finds instead is a larger story of corruption and intrigue reaching deep into the heart of the occupation. Berlin in July 1945 is like nowhere else a tragedy, and a feverish party after the end of the world. As Jake searches the ruins for Lena, he discovers that years of war have led to unimaginable displacement and degradation. As he hunts for the soldier’s killer, he learns that Berlin has become a city of secrets, a lunar landscape that seethes with social and political tension. When the two searches become entangled, Jake comes to understand that the American Military Government is already fighting a new enemy in the east, busily identifying the ‘good Germans’ who can help win the next war. And hanging over everything is the larger crime, a crime so huge that it seems the worst irony beyond punishment. At once a murder mystery, a moving love story, and a riveting portrait of a unique time and place, The Good German is a historical thriller of the first rank.

Alibi

From the bestselling author of LOS ALAMOS and THE GOOD GERMAN comes a riveting tale of love, revenge and murder set in postwar VeniceIt is 1946, and a stunned Europe is beginning its slow recovery from the ravages of World War II. Adam Miller has come to Venice to visit his widowed mother and try to forget the horrors he has witnessed as a U.S. Army war crimes investigator in Germany. Nothing has changed in Venice not the beautiful palazzi, not the violins at Florian s, not the shifting water that makes the city, untouched by bombs, still seem a dream. But when Adam falls in love with Claudia, a Jewish woman scarred by her devastating experiences during the war, he is forced to confront another Venice, a city still at war with itself, haunted by atrocities it would rather forget. Everyone, he discovers, has been compromised by the Occupation the international set drinking at Harry s, the police who kept order for the Germans, and most of all Gianni Maglione, the suave and enigmatic Venetian who happens to be his mother’s new suitor. And when, finally, the troubled past erupts in violent murder, Adam finds himself at the center of a web of deception, intrigue, and unexpected moral dilemmas. When is murder acceptable? What are the limits of guilt? How much is someone willing to pay for a perfect Alibi? Using the piazzas and canals of Venice as an enthralling but sinister backdrop, Joseph Kanon has again written a gripping historical thriller. Alibi is at once a murder mystery, a love story, and a superbly crafted novel about the nature of moral responsibility.

Stardust

THE ACCLAIMED, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE GOOD GERMAN AND LOS ALAMOS RETURNS WITH HIS MOST ABSORBING AND ACCOMPLISHED NOVEL YET A MESMERIZING TALE OF HOLLYWOOD, POSTWAR POLITICAL INTRIGUE, AND ONE MAN’S DETERMINATION TO LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS BROTHER’S DEATH. Hollywood, 1945. Ben Collier has just arrived from wartorn Europe to find that his brother, Daniel, has died in mysterious circumstances. Why would a man with a beautiful wife, a successful career in the movies, and a heroic past choose to kill himself? Determined to uncover the truth, Ben enters the maze of the studio system and the uneasy world beneath the glossy shine of the movie business. For this is the moment when politics and the dream factories are beginning to collide as Communist witch hunts render the biggest stars and star makers vulnerable. Even here, where the devastation of Europe seems no more real than a painted movie set, the war casts long and dangerous shadows. When Ben learns troubling facts about his own family’s past, he is caught in the middle of a web of deception that shakes his moral foundation to its core. Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Stardust flawlessly blends fact and fiction into a haunting thriller evoking both the glory days of the movies and the emergence of a dark strain of American political life. It brilliantly proves why Joseph Kanon has been hailed as the ‘heir apparent to Graham Greene’ The Boston Globe.

Istanbul Passage

From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Stardust, The Good German, and Los Alamos a gripping tale of an American undercover agent in 1945 Istanbul who descends into the murky cat and mouse world of compromise and betrayal that will come to define the entire post war era. A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion. Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon’s attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to make? Istanbul Passage is the story of a man swept up in the aftermath of war, an unexpected love affair, and a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it. Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Joseph Kanon’s latest novel flawlessly blends fact and fiction into a haunting thriller about the dawn of the Cold War, once again proving why Kanon has been hailed as the heir apparent to Graham Greene The Boston Globe.