Francis Bennett's trilogy, tracing the history of the Cold War, started with Making Enemies, set in the deadly days of the race for the hydrogen bomb in the late 1940s, and continued with Secret Kingdom, which anatomised the run-up to the Hungarian Revolution, when the Hungarian people cried out for help from the West and were ignored for the basest of realpolitikal reasons. Now, in Doctor Berlin, we are in 1961 at yet another time of crisis as the great powers squabble over that symbol of a divided Europe, Berlin. As in his previous books, Francis Bennett shows us how lies and deception have shaped the recent history of our continent, how a relatively small number of deeply cynical men and women have affected the lives of millions - and how, if a few idealists had been listened to - it all might have been very different. A strong, engrossing thriller in the tradition of Le Carre.