Broken Frontier

When an MI6 officer’s body is fished out of the river Spree in Berlin, the British government begins to panic — not just because one of their spies is dead, but because of what he was smuggling across the Iron Curtain. A list. A list supplied by an East German Stasi double agent. A list identifying every spy working in Berlin, on both sides of the wall. A list that was not found on the spy’s corpse.

Uncertain who they can still trust, MI6 sends in veteran officer Lorraine Broughton. Her job is simple; find the list before the Soviets do, at any cost. But Lorraine soon discovers there is more going on in this epicenter of the Cold War than even MI6 realize. Soon she’s entangled in a web of assassin-spies, double agents, double-crosses and infiltrations into East Berlin — just as the city is about to explode and tear down The Wall forever.

“I’ve been working on COLD CITY, on and off, for almost three years,” said writer Antony Johnston. “The Cold War was still very much in progress as I was growing up, and the Berlin Wall symbolized everything about the mood and paranoia of those times. It seemed like it would stand forever; even while glasnost and perestroika made the headlines, the Wall remained. And then, almost without warning, it was gone. I still remember watching the live pictures on TV as it was torn down, feeling that there was hope for the world after all. I even visited Berlin shortly after the Wall came down, to see it for myself, because everything about it had such an effect on Europeans of my generation.”

COLD CITY will be published by Oni Press, and with Oni having such a distinguished history of publishing excellent espionage thrillers, Johnston is excited to add his new story to the line. “When I came to write my first full-on spy thriller, I knew it could only be set in one place and time: Berlin, during the Cold War. In COLD CITY I’ve tried to convey the paranoia of the times that I remember from my childhood. The knowledge that in the game of spies you simply can’t trust anyone. COLD CITY's lead, Lorraine, is an outsider in Berlin, and the locals don’t appreciate her sticking her nose in. She’s very much alone, knowing that anyone, even her supposed allies, could be working against her.”

Oni Press Editor in Chief James Lucas Jones commented, “When Antony brought us a Cold War spy thriller set in Berlin I got really excited. COLD CITY is much more John Le Carré than James Bond, a spy thriller that relies on intelligence and insight rather than explosions and cackling villains. And like Antony's ongoing Oni Press title, WASTELAND, nothing is what it seems in this story. Smart readers will be rewarded for paying close attention.”

COLD CITY is an original graphic novel published by Oni Press from writer Antony Johnston (WASTELAND, QUEEN & COUNTRY: DECLASSIFIED) and is slated for a late 2010 release.