Berlin 1948. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong.
A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment - to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? Betrayal? Survival? Murder?
Filled with intrigue and the moral ambiguity of conflicted loyalties, Leaving Berlin is a compelling thriller and a love story that brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.

Joseph Kanon is the author of five previous novels: Los Alamos, The Good German, The Prodigal Spy, Alibi and Stardust. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City.