Kingdom of shadows : a novel

Summary: Paris, 1938. As Europe edges towards war, Nicholas Morath, an urbane former calvary officer, spends his days working at the small advertising agency he owns and his nights in the bohemian circles of his Argentine mistress. But Morath has been recently recruited by his uncle, Count Janos Polanyi, a diplomat in the Hungarian legation, for operations against Hitler's Germany. It's Morath who does Polanyi's clandestine work, moving between the beach cafes of Juan-les-Pins and the forests of Ruthenia, from Czech fortresses in the Sudentenland to the private gardens of the declasse royalty in Budapest. The web Polanyi spins for Moath is deep and complex and pits him against German intelligence officers, NKVD renegades, and Croat assassins in a shadow war of treachery and uncertain loyalties, a war that Hungary cannot afford to lose.