Emboldened now by atomic weapons, the Soviets are hell-bent on forcing the Western Powers - France, Great Britain, and the United States - out of the still-divided former capital. He rules a Soviet Union that has gone from a backward nation to a world power in four decades.
In Moscow, Joseph Stalin is gravely ill but more aggressive than ever. In Washington, Dwight Eisenhower is the newly elected President of the United States. The former capital of Nazi Germany has emerged as the most volatile flashpoint of the Cold War. But before Cochrane can safely settle his family in Berlin, he finds himself investigating the suspicious death of the man he succeeded. Cochrane has a special knowledge of Berlin and its people, having worked there undercover during the Hitler era, during World War II, and during the successful 1948-49 airlift. In this, the fourth installment of Noel Hynd's hugely popular Flowers from Berlin series, William Thomas Cochrane returns to Berlin as part of a permanent intelligence posting, replacing an old friend.