The day before sunrise

Über

April 1945 — the last act of the war…

The Allied stranglehold on Berlin is tightening by the day, as the escape corridor to the Bavarian Alps and the Swiss border is narrowing.

In the maze of ruins that Berlin has become, a man of appalling ingenuity, with a ruthless sense of self-preservation, contrives his escape.

He is the secret policeman Ernst Schöller.

In his shabby, shiny suit with its sagging pockets, he is not immediately recognizable as someone of importance, but as the Reich Special Investigator he has long been checking up on the highest in the land, and there is nothing he doesn’t know.

Using his position of knowledge, he begins to bargain for his life with the Allies.

The man with whom the bargain must be made is Allen Welsh Dulles, chief of the O.S.S. in Switzerland and President Roosevelt’s personal representative.

With chilling pragmatism, he sees that the longer the German surrender is delayed the deeper the Communist penetration of Europe will be.

In order to stop Tito’s seizure of Trieste, he is ready to talk to the devil himself.

Schöller and Dulles, both professionals and practical men, arrive at an arrangement of expediency in Berne.

‘A first-class political thriller, at once literate, provocative and exciting’ – The Sunday Telegraph

‘Blends fact and fiction in such a way that you really can’t see the join. The final irony is profound indeed.’ - Sunday Times

‘Very convincing’ - The Guardian

Providing an accurate reconstruction of real life events, The Day Before Sunrise is a masterly piece of story-telling, recreating in minute detail the terrible last days of the Third Reich.

Thomas Wiseman was born in Vienna in 1931 and came to England at the age of seven. He was a columnist on the Evening Standard from 1953 until 1961, when he became film critic for the Sunday Express. Later he wrote a weekly column for the Guardian. He wrote his first novel, Czar , in France after giving up full-time journalism. His novel The Romantic Englishwoman was recently filmed by Joseph Losey, and his study of Vienna under the Nazis received critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.