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Dandy in Aspic

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It's the mid-1960s and Eberlin is a 36-year-old desk-jockey in British Intelligence, a gatherer and analyzer of facts. He's also a loner who dresses very well and collects porcelain. Recently, a couple of the Ministry's operatives have been killed by an unknown Soviet agent and Eberlin is recruited by his superiors to try to learn the hitman's whereabouts. It turns out they even have a name: Krasnevin. This is a problem for Eberlin. *He's* Krasnevin, a Russian mole who has been in England since he was eighteen, and who is a very skilled assassin. Essentially, he's being told to find, identify, and kill himself. And off he goes to divided Berlin without a clue as to what he can do or how. There's a great deal in this engrossing novel (the author's first) that will remind the reader of Le Carré, especially the way the characters take on shape and color very gradually and the way in which the author requires the reader to work at following the plot. Don't think you know how it's all going to end, though, not even as you read the last chapter, because the final four pages will come up and smack you right in the face.