With this new work, master storyteller James

Carroll has written his most ambitious novel to

date: Family Trade is as compelling a narrative as

his bestselling Morta/Fr/ends and as rich in moral

vision as his critically acclaimed Fault L/nes. A grip-

ping story of international intrigue, Family Trade is

also a profound exploration of the morality of the

hidden conflict between East and West. Told from

the perspective ofJake McKay, son and nephew of

two of the men who plan and conduct this "quiet

war; James Carroll s novel focuses on the human

costs of choices that intelligence officers must make.

Washington, D.C., 1960: Against a background

of the election of a new President and the crises

caused by Berlin, the U-2 and notorious defections,

Jake McKay begins a promising career as a student

at Georgetown University. At an art gallery he is

smitten by the sight of a beautiful young girl, but

suddenly his youthful preoccupations are shattered

as he stumbles on a first sign of his father s great

secret. The discovery implies adultery, deceit, and

betrayal, and it devastates him. Seeking the truth

he turns to his uncle, only to suffer an even more

devastating blow, one that destroys his family.

London, Berlin, 1945: The orders come from

number 10 Downing Street. Group Captain Giles

Patterson, Jake s uncle, and Colonel John McKay,

his father, are to undertake the greatest challenge

of their exemplary wartime careers in British and

American military intelligence: to parachute into

Berlin and, with the aid of the local Communist

underground, to cut off Hitler s planned escape

from the city. Yet this=extraordinary mission is

merely a cover for their real assignment-- to

destroy all documents and evidence of Nazi work

on the atomic bomb before they can fall into Rus-

sian hands. In the chaotic and violent moments

between the Nazis defeat and the Red Army s vic-

tory, these two men discover one of the great secrets

of the coming Cold War, and a great secret about their persona/friendship. Now they must find a way

of living with both forever.

Boston, Berlin, 1980: Jake McKay is an English

professor whose complacent and comfortable life

cannot protect him from a keen sense of failed

expectations. He is visited by a beautiful German

woman, who was the young girl from the art gallery

years before and whose image in Jake s mind has

always been tied to the unanswered questions of his

youth. These mysteries still haunt him, and so he

accompanies her on a secret mission to Berlin.

There, amid the painful memories of the last war

and the dramatic symbols of the present quiet one

Jake learns the shocking truth, and it is not at all

what he expects. Suddenly he discovers that he is at

the center of the secret, and for one extraordinary

moment he must ply the family trade at last.

If Family Trade has a special depth and urgency,

it is because it comes out of the imagination of a

gifted novelist who is himself the son of an Amer-

ican intelligence official. A fast-paced story of

espionage at the highest level, it is also a deeply felt

examination of the shattering consequences that

men and women suffer when their most crucial duty

involves deceit and their loyalty requires betrayal.

]ames Carroll is the author of Madonna Red,

Mortal Friends, and Fault Lines. He and his wife,

the author Alexandra Marshall, live in Boston with

their daughter, Elizabeth.