How to Die

The winter of 1983. The preparations for the most spectacular spy swap in history on the Glienicke Bridge, the »Bridge of Spies«, have been completed. KGB officer Rem Kukura – code name Pilgrim – is to be exchanged for the son of a member of the politburo. In the midst of it all: Nina Winter, who is the only one able to identify Kukura. But on the bridge, she is swept into an inferno, and Nina’s and Rem’s fate becomes a question of war and peace between the superpowers.dy

Three years earlier: Nina is an analyst at the German Secret Service, the BND, where she assesses intel reports. A desk jockey. Until she is told that Pilgrim, the BND’s mysterious top Moscow agent, makes his continued cooperation dependent on her: he wants Nina to come to Russia as his senior officer. She knows that this is the chance of a lifetime. But Nina has no idea that she will have a mortal enemy in the KGB. To survive, she must become someone else, a woman who dances with death.

With powerful eloquence and a zest for skillfully crafted action, Andreas Pflüger takes us into the world of espionage and counterespionage at the height of the Cold War. Pflüger makes readers fear for his protagonist Nina Winter page after page, follow her transformation into a top agent and fight for survival alongside her.

»A masterpiece by the German John Le Carré« Deutschlandfunk

»How to Die is Pflüger’s best novel to date: elaborate action, laconic wit, dense, lyrical language, and a devilishly surprising plot – tension by the bucketload.« Tobias Gohlis, Die Zeit

»In his precise, clear language, Andreas Pflüger takes the reader on a compelling journey through time that is also terrifyingly contemporary.« Sabine Abel, BR Fernsehen

»On almost every one of the book's 450 pages, we see what a brilliant storyteller Pflüger is – with an unfailing feel for drama and rhythm.« Katja Sembritzki, ntv

»Hardly any other author knows the laws and internal structures of the international secret services as well can write about them as brilliantly as Andreas Pflüger.« Hans-Ludwig Zachert, former Head of Counterintelligence at the BKA

»A great creative achievement that is not afraid of complexity or of constructing tension through an ambitious plot, and which delivers on all its promises. Once again, Andreas Pflüger has proven his class as a crime writer, and with How to Die, he has delivered one of the best thrillers of the season, if not of the whole year!« Marius Müller, buch-haltung.com