‘A wonderfully clear and digestible account. . . as gripping as any thriller’ - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday.

BERLIN’S FATE WAS sealed at the 1945 Yalta Conference: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up between the victorious powers - American, British, French and Soviet. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by their common purpose of defeating Germany they wasted little time reverting to their pre-war hostility toward each other. Rival systems, rival ideologies and rival personalities ensured that the German capital became an explosive battleground.

The warring leaders who ran Berlin’s four sectors were charismatic, larger than life men - individuals like America’s Frank ‘Howlin’ Mad’ Howley, a sharp-tongued colonel who fought an intensely personal battle against his wily Soviet nemesis, General Alexander Kotikov. Kotikov oozed charm at his alcohol-fuelled parties, but Howley correctly suspected his Soviet rival was Stalin’s sinister agent, appointed to evict the western allies from Berlin, and ultimately from Germany as well.

Checkmate in Berlin recounts the first battle of the Cold War as we’ve never before seen it. An exhilarating tale of intense rivalry and raw power, it is above all a story of flawed individuals who were determined to win. This is a story of unprecedented human drama and it was to have a profound and often underestimated shaping hand on our modern world - one that’s still felt today.

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REVIEWS

‘Brilliantly written and completely absorbing, this is Milton’s masterpiece.’ - Anthony Horowitz

'A sparkling, Le Carré-esque history ... Anyone who has read Milton's previous works of narrative history will know how good he is with set pieces, and at making familiar figures grab the attention afresh...But although Milton has great fun with the big players, the triumph of the book is its depiction of the men who ran things on the ground in Berlin, who in Milton's hands turn out to be figures hardly less compelling than Churchill and Stalin... Thoroughly entertaining.' ***** - Daily Telegraph

‘Brilliantly recapturing the febrile atmosphere of Berlin in the first four years after the Second World War, Giles Milton reminds us what an excellent story-teller he is… he has an unerring sense for the revealing incident and hitherto-untold story’ - Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny.

‘Giles Milton never disappoints. The man who helped to turn narrative history into one of the most popular genres in modern publishing, Checkmate in Berlin is up there with his best. Milton paints characters so vividly, and his writing has the momentum of a novel - only better, because it’s all true.’ - Dan Snow

‘Expertly told… The sharp-eyed narrative historian Giles Milton charts the transition from the Yalta conference in February 1945 to the breaking of the Soviet blockade of West Berlin in May 1949... This is a book full of heroes, but Frank Howley takes the starring role. Milton has spun a good yarn about a gifted man who followed his gut.’ - Roger Boyes, The Times.

‘A wonderfully clear and digestible account. . . The devastation wrought on Berlin by the Russians is vividly described by the British historian Giles Milton in a series of sharp vignettes. . . as gripping as any thriller.’ - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday.