Menu
With total sales in excess of 550,000 books, Alex’s highly acclaimed WW2 espionage novels put him at the forefront of authors in the Second World War espionage genre.
After the success of the Spy Masters and Prince series of four books each,
Canelo (www.canelo.co) have now published his third series.
The Wolf Pack series starts with Agent in Berlin, a tense thriller set in the German capital and featuring two unlikely British agents: the wife of an SS officer and an American sports journalist. Agent in Peril features the same characters. Agent in the Shadows, the final book in the series, was published in February 2023.
Fans of Alex’s work will once again enjoy the intriguing characters, the intricate plots and the detailed research which ensure the stories have an authentic air to them.
As with his previous novels, the Wolf Pack series will be where espionage meets love and where deception is one of the few uncertainties in life.
Alex is now working on a new series of four novels, commissioned by Canelo. The series covers the period from the earl/mid 1930s to the late 1950s: the rise of the Nazis, Stalin’s Great Purge, the Second World War and the Cold War. The first book in the series – Every Spy a Traitor – will be published in May 2024.
Alex Gerlis was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. He worked for the BBC as a journalist for nearly thirty years, starting out as a researcher on a three-month contract on Panorama and ending his career there as Head of Training in the BBC College of Journalism.
He left the BBC in 2011 to concentrate on his writing. He lives in west London with his wife and has two daughters and two grandsons, even though he is obviously not old enough to be a grandfather. He is often asked if he’s worked in the world of espionage. It is a question he declines to answer.
Alex has all the usual hobbies and interests one expects and has supported Grimsby Town since 1968. His books contain cryptic references to the club, which only Mariners fans will appreciate.
Publisher (Canelo): Alex Gerlis | Canelo
Publisher (Canelo): Alex Gerlis | Canelo
Agent in Berlin – To live among wolves, first you must become one…
Agent in Berlin is Alex Gerlis’s ninth novel and follows on from the success of the Spy Master and Prince series: as of October 2021, Alex had sold in excess of 330,000 copies of his novels, in paperback and eBook formats.
Agent in Berlin is the first a new series of three books featuring an unlikely pair of British agents operating out of Berlin: an American sports journalist and an SS officer’s wife.
With war coming to Europe British spymaster Barnaby Allen is recruiting a network of agents in Germany. Despite constant danger and the ever-present threats of discovery and betrayal, Allen’s network unearths top-secret plans for a new German fighter plane – and a truly devastating intelligence prize… an audacious Japanese plan to attack the United States. But can they prove it?
The race is on.
Praise for Agent in Berlin
An unputdownable and atmospheric Second World War espionage thriller, Agent in Berlin will grip you to the very end. Perfect for readers of David Young, Robert Harris and Rory Clements.
Agent in Peril (The Wolf Pack Spies Book 2)
To what lengths will the British go to smuggle a secret weapon into Nazi Germany? An unmissable Second World War thriller from bestseller Alex Gerlis.
‘Absorbing … Gerlis directs his cast with verve’ Financial Times
Hiding in the horror of Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto with his family, scientist Roman Loszynski has a secret: a means of making aerial bombing raids frighteningly accurate. Codenamed Tatra, it could change the course of the war.
With British agent Jack Miller now in Switzerland, back in Berlin undercover spy Sophia von Naundorf is determined to escape Germany come what may. As the RAF look to destroy the Ruhr through its bombing raids, Barnaby Allen and British intelligence will need everything Jack and Sophia have to help find, test and deploy these devices.
But that will mean getting Loszynski out of Poland, and themselves re-entering the Reich. Both seem, on the face of it, impossible, desperate missions filled with danger. Every second a chance for discovery.
Every second a moment of peril.
An intense and unputdownable espionage thriller from modern master Alex Gerlis, this is perfect for readers of Robert Harris, Charles Cumming and Rory Clements.
Agent in the Shadows (The Wolf Pack Spies Book 3)
There’s a traitor in the pack… Who can you trust? The extraordinary final instalment of the Wolf Pack series.
June, 1943. In Lyon, the capital of the French resistance, a secret meeting is held under orders from General de Gaulle. The objective is to unite all resistance factions. The future of France is on the line.
But when the meeting is raided by the Gestapo under Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyon’, the plan disintegrates and the leaders are captured. The movement has been betrayed. There is a traitor in Lyon.
British undercover agents Jack Miller and Sophia von Naundorf are sent to France. They must find the informer and save the resistance. But the Gestapo is on the hunt. More traitors emerging from the shadows. The net is closing.
This unmissable espionage thriller from modern master Alex Gerlis is perfect for readers of Alan Furst, Charles Cumming and Rory Clements.
“They set sail a few minutes before midnight, the Northern Hawk slipping silently and unseen through the dock gates into the Humber Estuary, the world around them pitch black, with only an occasional distant flickering light to remind them they were not alone in it.”
Alex’s journey through the dark world of espionage during the Second World War continues.
His new novel is Prince of Spies is the first of a series featuring young British detective turned MI6 agent, Richard Prince. Prince of Spies takes Prince into occupied Denmark and Nazi Germany itself as the British desperately tries to gather intelligence on the German rocket programme.
“A triumph of storytelling from the first page to the last”
A nest of espionage. A break for the border. A race to survive.
The Allies are desperate to stop neutral Turkey supplying vital materials to the Nazis – materials which could help them win the war. But then a British agent makes a fatal mistake, and disappears in Istanbul.
In England, detective turned spy Richard Prince – back from a clandestine mission in Nazi-occupied Europe – is hunting for his lost son. Before long he is drawn into a dangerous follow-up operation, posing as a journalist in Turkey.
The mission soon goes wrong. Out of touch with London and stranded hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, Prince will have to find evidence of the Turks secret trade with the Nazis, as well as a way out.
Chances of survival? Low. Chance of completing his mission? Prince will do whatever it takes.
An astounding WWII espionage thriller from a modern master of the genre, Sea of Spies is a triumph, perfect for fans of Alan Furst, John le Carré and Robert Harris.
As the war approaches its end, Prince once more has to risk everything.
Berlin, 1939: A German intelligence officer learns a top agent is quickly moving up the British Army ranks. He bides his time.
Arnhem, 1944: British paratroopers have been slaughtered in one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War. A shell shocked officer is convinced: the Germans knew they were coming.
But who betrayed them?
Back in London, Richard Prince, detective and spy, is approached by MI5 about a counterintelligence operation. Information is leaking and British troops are dying. Prince has to stop it, and crack the suspected spy ring at all costs. But in the world of espionage nothing is as it seems…
The latest WWII espionage thriller from Alex Gerlis is perfect for readers of Robert Harris, John le Carré and Alan Furst.
Europe, 1945: no longer at war but not yet at peace. The gripping finale to the bestselling Richard Prince espionage thrillers.
British agent Richard Prince and the Danish spy Hanne Jakobsen come together for a vital mission: to find a Nazi war criminal responsible for the murder of fellow British agents.
The hunt takes them on a perilous journey through Europe, a continent living on its nerves in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. They unearth a secret Nazi escape line funded by British traitors – and it’s one which could lead them to Hitler’s trusted deputy, Martin Bormann.
But when the Americans become involved it is no longer certain who’s on which side. Help might come in unlikely places. Can justice be found against the odds… Or are they too late?
An unputdownable spy thriller with a twist you won’t see coming, this is the brilliant conclusion to Alex Gerlis’ masterful Richard Prince spy thrillers, perfect for fans of John le Carré and Alan Furst.
Praise for End of Spies
‘A page turning read, guaranteed to entertain’ Evening Standard
“Owen Quinn woke with a start from a deep sleep on the morning of that first Tuesday in June. He would not sleep properly again for the next eight months.”
France, July 1944: a month after the Allied landings in Normandy and the liberation of Europe is underway. In the Pas de Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations Executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears. In London, her husband Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies’ sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day.Appalled but determined, Quinn sets off on a perilous hunt through France in search of his wife. With the help of the Resistance he finds Nathalie, but then the bitterness of war and its insatiable appetite for revenge, catch up with them in dramatic fashion.
Based on real events of the Second World War The Best of Our Spies is a thrilling tale of international intrigue, love, deception and espionage.
Since its publication in December 2012 The Best of Our Spies has sold more than 60,000 copies (as of March 2017).
“On the 20-minute drive to Lutry, the Alps rose high to his left, the lake sweeping below him to the right. That summed it up, he thought: caught between two powerful forces. Not unlike serving two masters.”
It’s not unusual for spies to have secrets, but Henry Hunter has more than most and after he is stopped by British Intelligence at Croydon airport on the eve of the Second World War, he finds he has even more. From Switzerland he embarks on a series of increasingly perilous missions into Nazi Germany, all the time having to cope with different identities and competing spymasters. In March 1941 in Berlin, haunted by a dark episode from his past, he makes a fateful decision, resulting in a dramatic journey to the Swiss frontier with a shocking outcome.
The Swiss Spy is set against the real-life backdrop of the top-secret Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union. The story paints an authentic picture of life inside wartime Europe: the menacing atmosphere, the ever-present danger and the constant intrigue of the world of espionage.
The Swiss Spy was published in June 2015 and as of March 2017 had sold more than 34,000 copies.
‘The problem with you chaps in intelligence … is that for you the difference between war and peace is of almost academic interest. Once this war ends you’ll no doubt begin to start worrying about the next one: by the sounds of it, you’ve started to do so already.” – British intelligence chief in Vienna Spies
With the end of the war in sight, the Allies begin to divide up the spoils and it proves to be a dangerous game. The British have become aware that, contrary to what’s been agreed, the Soviet Union is intent on controlling Austria once World War Two ends. And Major Edgar is given the job of establishing an espionage unit in Vienna. He sends in a married Swiss couple – Rolf Eder and Katharina Hoch – who, in fact, have only met each other a week before their journey. Their job is to track down Austria’s most respected politician – in hiding from the Nazis – and bring him over to the British cause. But the feared Soviet spy Viktor Krasotkin is already in the war-torn city, embarking on exactly the same mission.
A taut, tense master class in espionage fiction from the author of The Best of Our Spies and The Swiss Spy, the new novel by Alex Gerlis takes place in a fiercely pro-Nazi city in the final months of World War Two – a place where the Wehrmacht patrol the streets and the Gestapo rule unchecked. As the former Austrian capital faces the onslaught of the Allies from one side and the Red Army from the other, it provides an unforgettable backdrop to a chess-like game of one-upmanship and political ideology.
‘‘Did you fight in the war?’ ‘Yes, if fighting is the correct word.’ ‘And which side were you on?’ ‘The same side as you, I suppose.’ ‘The same side as me? Even now I’m not sure which side I was on.’
In the dying days of the Second World War, a group of Nazis frantically plot the next steps for their country. SS recruits gather east of Berlin to be trained for an audacious yet ill-fated mission to bring about a Fourth Reich.
Three decades later, a young British diplomat in East Berlin is compromised after falling into a honey-trap. He contacts Major Edgar, a veteran British spymaster, now living in retirement. Edgar is drawn into an unlikely alliance with an old adversary, Viktor, the veteran Russian spymaster. Can they ever trust one another?
The pair are drawn into a world of Nazi war criminals and sympathisers in Britain, double agents in the East and West and the rise of the Baader Meinhoff – urban terrorists threatening the West German state as Cold War tensions rise.
The Berlin Spies is the thrilling new novel with an astonishing twist from Alex Gerlis, the acclaimed author of The Best of Our Spies, The Swiss Spy and Vienna Spies.