Berlin, 1948; the Iron Curtain has slammed shut, bisecting a city still pitted and scarred from the calamities of World War II; the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the subsequent Allied airlift are imminent. Around these tectonic moments in history and politics, first-time novelist Greg Flynn sets his thriller, The Berlin Cross.

The novel opens with Captain Beauchamp, a member of the British Royal Military Police stationed in Berlin, examining the tortured corpse of Friedrich Kessler, an atomic scientist working for the US government. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, New York detective John Docker is employed by a mysterious antiques dealer to purchase the Berlin Cross, which is, according to legend, a fragment of the cross on which Christ was crucified. From these starting points, Flynn fashions a story about politics, espionage, atomic secrets, black marketeering and a brace of beautiful women. The novel sounds like an enticing mix of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1929) and Ian McEwan’s The Innocent (1998).