The Death of Trotsky

THE PULSE-POUNDING TRUE STORY BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY

Elegant, unshowy and gripping in the manner of a dependable le CarréTHE TIMES

The page-turning pace of a thriller . . . A first-class historian ANDREW ROBERTS

Breathtaking . . . This is lucid, kaleidoscopic history RORY CARROLL

Gripping . . . Full of treachery, intrigue and betrayal DAMIEN LEWIS

In August 1940, a man walked into Leon Trotskys study in Mexico City and drove an ice pick into his skull. The killer? Ramón Mercader - an aristocratic Spaniard turned Soviet assassin. The mastermind? Joseph Stalin.

But this was no simple hit. It was the climax of a decade-long global hunt: a story of seduction and betrayal, of fake identities and secret loyalties, of idealists and fanatics, lovers and spies. While Trotsky raged in exile - still clinging to his revolutionary dream - Stalins agents closed in. At the heart of it all was Mercader: a man trained to lie, charm and ultimately to kill.

Tracing a path from the cafés of Paris to the battlefields of Spain, from Stalins Kremlin to a bloodied study in Mexico, The Death of Trotsky unfolds like a spy thriller - a story of obsession and betrayal, of dreams destroyed and loyalties twisted, culminating in one of the most shocking murders of the modern age.

Hugely compelling ROGER MOORHOUSE

As good as any thrillerHELEN RAPPAPORT