Field grey - Philip Kerr

It's 1954 and Bernie has tired of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky for Cuban Intelligence. He secretly buys a boat and sails to Florida, where he's arrested, sent back to Cuba and imprisoned in the Isle of Pines. There he meets Castro, and a French intelligence officer, Thibaud, who liaises between the CIA and French intelligence. Exhaustively questioned by Thibaud, Bernie finds himself flown back to Berlin and another prison cell with a proposition: work for the French or hang for murder.

Bernie's job is simple: to meet and greet POWs returning from Germany. One of these is Edgard de Boudel, a French war criminal and member of the French SS, who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer. The French are anxious to catch up with this man and deal with him in their own ruthless way. But Bernie's past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him - in a way he could never have foreseen.

Philip Kerr is the author of nine acclaimed Bernie Gunther novels. If The Dead Rise Notwon the 2009 CWA Ellis Peters Award for Best Historical Crime Novel. Philip Kerr was born in Edinburgh and now lives in London.