David Downing
Author
I grew up in London and between 1973 and 1976 worked for one rock magazine and freelanced for several others. My fist book, which grew out of the rock journalism, was Future Rock published in 1975. Since then, I have worked as a freelance book writer. In this period the books mostly alternated between modern culture (rock music and movies) or political/military history, but I also wrote two works of 'faction' - the WW2 alternative history The Moscow Option and the forward-looking Russian Revolution 1985. In 1987 my first thriller The Red Eagles was published in the US. My Jack of Spies was published on both sides of the Atlantic in 2014. The sequel, One Man's Flag was published in 2015 with the third volume, Lenin's Roller Coaster published in 2017.
I have written eight volumes of the John Russell series of espionage thrillers and Sealing Their Fate a military history.
The stand-alone spy story The Diary of a Dead Man on Leave was published by Soho Press in the US in 2019.
Wedding Station, the seventh volume of the Station series (a prequel to Zoo Station) was published by Soho Press and Old Street in the UK in 2021.
Union Station, the eighth and concluding volume in the series was published in 2024.
Latest Release
Union Station by David Downing
In this fascinating historical thriller, a British journalist (and former spy) is adrift in McCarthy-era Los Angeles—until his research into a wartime conspiracy brings him face-to-face with the perilous instability of a post-Stalin Berlin.
John Russell, an English journalist who specializes in human-interest pieces, had always been a reluctant spy. It’s a dangerous life—especially when you are tasked with being a double agent for Soviet and American intelligence, in a city as fraught with hazard as Nazi-occupied Berlin. But it’s been years, now, since Russell was finally able to extricate himself from his life of espionage—through a shady deal with a high-ranking Soviet official.
Now it’s 1953, and Russell and his family—his long-time partner, Effi Koenen, a burgeoning star on an American sitcom, and their daughter, Rosa, a young artist on the cusp of adulthood—live a life of relative comfort in Los Angeles. Feeling somewhat adrift, Russell has just begun work on a book investigating American firms that continued doing business with Germany during Nazi occupation. Then he notices someone is tailing him around Los Angeles. Has someone not taken kindly to his research? Or could it be that the deal Russell struck all those years ago has left him with unfinished business?
The answer may lie in Berlin, where John and Effi decide to return for the Third Annual Berlin International Film Festival. Braving the political disorder of a city that was once their home, the two are thrust into a perilous mission to protect the life—and safety—they worked so hard to build.
