Kirjahaku

Neil Young is arguably the only rock performer and songwriter whose work has retained the respect of a large following while gaining the allegiance of new generations. He has demonstrated a unique ability to combine commercial success with a willful experimentation. His music has encompassed almost every American popular style, from folk to metal, from rockabilly to punk, from rhythm and blues to country and it is his restless pursuit of new challenges that has led on the one hand to his recognition as one of the few stars who refuses to "sell out," and on the other hand to his being sued by his record company for making albums that were not "characteristic of Neil Young." In A Dreamer of Pictures , David Downing paints an illuminating and entertaining portrait of this contradictory and enigmatic figure. Here we see his childhood in Canada and his first forays into musicmaking his ups and downs with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Crazy Horse the privations and excesses of life on the road his unconventional filmmaking and fundraising ventures his often absurd political pronouncements his two marriages his involvement with his younger son's therapy to combat cerebral palsy and his continuing musical evolution.Neil Young has taken rock beyond generational boundaries and has helped to establish it as a unique art form A Dreamer of Pictures is thus a portrait not only of Young, but of rock itself.

Along with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison, Neil Young is one of the handful of 1960s rock musicians who have survived, retained the respect of a large public and gained the allegiance of a new generation. Today, at 46, he continues to pack huge venues and sell millions of critically acclaimed albums. His most recent, "Unplugged" has spent weeks in the Billboard album charts. Young's ability to combine commercial success with an almost wilful experimentation has made him one of the key figures in taking rock music beyond its generational boundaries, and establishing it as a musical form in its own right. A Canadian, Young is a star despite his aversion to stardom, self-indulgent in terms of his own mad sense of humour, and prone to melancholia. A childhood suffer from polio and an epileptic, he is the father of two disabled children. Musically, Young is a rare breed. A gifted singer-songwriter in the folk-rock tradition and an electric guitarist in the realm of pure rock, he is unrivalled as an all-rounder. Presley was his teenage hero, Dylan the man who inspired his performances in the Toronto clubs, and the Stones a model for his work with Crazy Horse.Young's music has been associated with a wide melange of styles - from R & B to country, from folk rock to heavy-metal grunge - but whatever the form, his music has always come from the heart, and has reaffirmed its power and importance.

In 1945, a party from the Moscow Dynamo football club travelled to Britain to play four matches against top British teams. They departed 33 days later, leaving a trail of controversy in their unbeaten wake. This work looks at how both Britain and Russia were unable to keep politics out of sport.

An England vs Germany football match is one of the most passionate and controversial sporting events there is - whether it's a club match or an international. Here, David Downing, the acclaimed author of "Passovotchka", examines the history of such clashes. He unearths the stories, the statistics, the footballing trends, and is then able to show how events on the football field have often mirrored the cultural and political identities of the two countries. Two nations, one goal.

Berlin, early 1948. The city, still occupied by the four Allied powers, still largely in ruins, has become the cockpit of a new Cold War, and as spring unfolds its German inhabitants live in fear of the Soviets enforcing a Western withdrawal. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, the legacies of the War have become entangled in the new Soviet-American conflict, creating a world of bizarre and fleeting loyalties, a paradise for spies. John Russell works for both Stalin's NKVD and the newly created CIA. He does as little for either as he can safely get away with, and between the tawdry tasks they set him--assessing dubious defectors in Trieste, running a spy ring in a Berlin VD clinic, rescuing ex-Nazis who might prove useful from Czechoslovakia--he seeks a way to cut himself loose. His partner Effi Koenen has an easier time, starring in a popular radio series and looking after their adopted daughter Rosa, until a woman she helped save in the War turns up on her doorstep, and admits to a child she left behind all those years before, a child now trapped behind the new Iron Curtain.

Caught between Soviets and Americans, John Russell can't escape his role as an accidental spy Book 5 in the John Russell historical thriller series. It's 1945, and British journalist John Russell has finally reunited with his German girlfriend, Effi, in London after a dangerous flight from war-torn Berlin. But Russell realizes his new life in England isn't going to last when he is tracked down by Soviet agent Shchepkin, who helped Russell escape the disastrous last days of the war and the Russian army's destruction of Berlin. It is time to repay the debt, and Shchepkin's bosses in Moscow are not the forgiving types. Russell has no choice but to agree to be transferred back to Germany, where he will resume his cover as an investigative journalist and hand over US intelligence reports on the German Communist Party. Meanwhile, Effi struggles to revive her acting career, but she cannot fight the desire to uncover ex-Nazi Party members still at large in Berlin. In this dangerous new world, where alliances change every day, will John and Effi be able to leave the past behind? Or are the new enemies the same as the old?

"In the elite company of literary spy masters Alan Furst and Philip Kerr . . . Downing is] brilliant at evoking even the smallest details of wartime Berlin."─Washington Post Berlin, 1939: Anglo-American journalist John Russell survives in Nazi Germany by keeping his head down. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But war is on the horizon, and every day is fraught with new risks. When an acquaintance from his communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he agrees in hopes that it will allow him to keep his family together. One dangerous assignment leads to another, and when the British and the Nazis notice his involvement with the Soviets, Russell is dragged into the murky world of warring intelligence services.

In Russia the Bolshevik revolution is in full-swing while the supposed Great War is destroying Europe in ways never before imagined. Fulltime lovers and part-time enemies, British spy Jack McColl and progressive American journalist Caitlin Hanley, have seen their relationship survive this far but in a world defined by "win at all cost" attitudes how much longer can they hold out? Winter 1917: As a generation of Europe's young men perish on the Eastern and Western fronts, British spy Jack McColl is assigned a sabotage mission deep in Central Asia, where German influence is strong. The mission only becomes more dangerous the closer he gets to its heart. Meanwhile, the woman he loves, Irish-American radical journalist Caitlin Hanley, is in Bolshevik Russia, thrilled to have the chance to cover the Revolution. Caitlin knows Moscow is where she is meant to be during this historic event--even if she is putting her own life at risk to bear witness. But four years of bloody war have taken their toll on all of Europe, and Jack and Caitlin's relationship may become another casualty. Caitlin's political convictions have always been for progress, feminism, and socialism--often diametrically opposed to the conservative goals of the British Empire Jack serves. Up until now, Jack and Caitlin have managed to set aside their allegiances and stay faithful to each other, but the stakes of their affair have risen too high. Can a revolutionary love a spy? And if she does, will it cost one of them their life?

In the fourth and final installment of David Downing's spy series, Jack McColl is sent to Soviet Russia, where the civil war is coming to an end. The Bolsheviks have won but the country is in ruins. With the hopes engendered by the revolution hanging by a thread, plots and betrayals abound. London, 1921: Ex-Secret Service spy Jack McColl is in prison serving time for assaulting a cop. McColl has been embittered by the Great War; he feels betrayed by the country that had sent so many young men to die needlessly. He can't stomach spying for the British Empire anymore. He's also heartbroken. The love of his life, radical journalist Caitlin Hanley, parted ways with him three years earlier so she could offer her services to the Communist revolution in Moscow. Then his former Secret Service boss offers McColl the chance to escape his jail sentence if he takes a dangerous and unofficial assignment in Russia, where McColl is already a wanted man. He would be spying on other spies, sniffing out the truth about MI5 meddling in a high-profile assassination plot. The target is someone McColl cares about and respects. The MI5 agent involved is someone he loathes. With the knowledge that he may be walking into a death trap, McColl sets out for Moscow, the scene of his last heartbreak. Little does he know that his mission will throw him back into Caitlin's life--or that her husband will be one of the men he is trying to hunt down.

The prequel to David Downing's bestselling Station series introduces John Russell, an Englishman with a political past who must keep his head down as the Nazis solidify their power. February 27, 1933. In this stunning prequel to the John Russell espionage novels, the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin is set ablaze. It's just a month after Hitler's inauguration as Chancellor of Germany, and the Nazis use the torching to justify a campaign of terror against their political opponents. John Russell's recent separation from his wife threatens his right to reside in Germany and any meaningful relationship with his six-year-old son, Paul. He has just secured work as a crime reporter for a Berlin newspaper, and the crimes which he has to report--the gruesome murder of a rent boy, the hit-and-run death of a professional genealogist, the suspicious disappearance of a Nazi-supporting celebrity fortune-teller--are increasingly entangled in the wider nightmare engulfing Germany. Each new investigation carries the risk of Russell's falling foul of the authorities, at a time when the rule of law has completely vanished, and the Nazis are running scores of pop-up detention centers, complete with torture chambers, in every corner of Berlin.

From bestselling author David Downing, master of historical espionage, comes a heart-wrenching depiction of Germany in the days leading up to World War II and the difficult choices of one man of conviction. In April 1938, a man calling himself Josef Hofmann arrives at a boarding house in Hamm, Germany, and lets a room from the widow who owns it. Fifty years later, Walter Gersdorff, the widow's son, who was eleven years old in the spring of 1938, discovers the carefully hidden diary the boarder had kept during his stay, even though he never should have written any of its contents down. What Walter finds is a chronicle of one the most tumultuous years in German history, narrated by a secret agent on a deadly mission. Josef Hofmann was not the returned Argentinian immigrant he'd said he was--he was a communist spy under Moscow's command trying to reconnect with remaining members of Germany's suppressed communist party. Hofmann's bosses believe the common workers are the only way to stop the German war machine from within. Posing as a railroad man, Hofmann sets out on his game of "Russian roulette," approaching Hamm's ex-party members one at a time and delicately feeling out their allegiances. He always knew his mission would most likely end in his death, and he was satisfied to make that sacrifice for the revolution if it could help stop Hitler and his abominable ideology. But as he grows close to the Gersdorffs, accidentally stepping into the role of the father Walter never had, Hofmann begins to wish for another kind of hope in his life.

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.

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.

On 30 September 1941, the Germans fight their way into the ruins of Moscow and the Soviet Union collapses. Although Russian resistance continues, German ambition multiplies after this success and offensives are launched in Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Hitler's armies, assured of victory, make their leader's dreams reality and Allied hopes of recovery seem almost hopelessly doomed. This provocative alternative history looks at the Second World War from a new angle – what might have happened had the Germans taken Moscow in 1941. Based on authentic history and real possibilities, this speculative narrative plays out the dramatic consequences if certain opportunities had been taken and examines the grotesque possibilities of a triumphant Third Reich. With a convincing blend of actual history and alternate events, this fascinating book is a chilling reminder that history might easily have been very different.