The Vault — Mark Dawson

West Berlin, 1986.

The Cold War has not yet thawed, political tensions inspire bloody retribution and trust is a rare commodity - even amongst allies.

Harry Mackintosh is the head of MI6's Berlin Station. When four of his best field agents are murdered by the Stasi during a failed defection operation, he has no choice but to respond. East German intelligence has become increasingly ruthless. MI6 has been overrun. Mackintosh knows that he won't be able to fight back, unless he's provided with a new kind of operative.

London.

Belfast-born Jimmy Walker is a career criminal, desperate to leave the world of organised crime behind. He's made just enough money to think about going straight. He wants to be a family man. He wants to stay alive for his wife and son. He wants to be the man they deserve.

He reluctantly agrees to one final job with the intention that it will be his last.

Little does Jimmy know that he's been set-up. The sins of his past are about to catch up with him.

Framed, arrested and imprisoned, Jimmy is about to become a pawn in the politics, corruption and underground conflicts of Europe. Mackintosh appears in Jimmy's Scotland Yard cell and makes him an offer. Go to Berlin to serve Queen and Country and he will be pardoned. The alternative? A life behind bars. Jimmy has no choice but to accept. He infiltrates East Berlin and, operating under cover as an arms buyer for the IRA, he works his way to the heart of the Stasi machine until he locates the defector. But all is not as it seems. Mackintosh has an ulterior motive. So does Jimmy. Neither man can trust the other and, as their objectives clash, it looks as if only one of them is going to get out alive.

Set in divided Berlin at a pivotal moment in history, and soaked in '80s nostalgia, The Vault is a thrilling adventure set in Mark Dawson's million-selling Group Fifteen world.