FROM DEFECTORS: "The question isn’t what’s right, his father would say.
The question is what’s the right thing to do?
They’re not always the same." FROM THE GOOD GERMAN: "The worst thing you ever heard? Stay in Berlin.
When you think you've heard the worst,
there's something more. Always something more." FROM LOS ALAMOS: "Oppenheimer smiled. 'You forget. Officially, I don't exist. None of us do. You're among ghosts now.' And with the smoke floating around his gaunt face, he did, for a minute, look like one." FROM ISTANBUL PASSAGE You know the sultans used to light their garden parties with turtles? They'd put candles on their backs and let them wander around. Hundreds of them.

Joseph Kanon is the internationally bestselling author of nine novels, which have been published in twenty-four languages: Los Alamos, which won the Edgar Award for best first novel; The Good German, which was made into a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett; The Prodigal Spy, Alibi, which earned Kanon the Hammett Award of the International Association of Crime Writers;  Leaving Berlin and The Defectors. He is also a recipient of The Anne Frank Human Writers Award for his writings on the aftermath of the Holocaust. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City with his wife, literary agent Robin Straus. They have two sons.