The Prodigal Spy - Joseph Kanon

A STORY OF FATHERS AND SONS AND THE LOYALTIES THAT TRANSCEND BORDERS.

In the 1950s Walter Kotlar, loyal Under-Secretary in the US Government, defected to Russia. Devastated by his actions his family rebuilt their lives on the pretence that he was dead.

But twenty years later he is very much alive – and he wants to see his son. Nick is horrified, repelled -and intrigued. Accompanied by Molly, the beautiful journalist who has brought his father’s message, Nick embarks on a clandestine mission to Czechoslovakia, to find a man who is old and dying – and who wants to come home.

However, Walter Kotlar is no longer important enough to merit anyone’s help. And therein lies the crux of the matter. He never was important: so why did the Communists bring him out of America? The only reason, as he tells Nick, was to protect someone else, someone infinitely more important – someone about whom he now knows everything except his name.