The Last Man's Dead

A Cold War spy thriller. The story of what might have happened during Rudolf Hess's last days. As her family tries to escape from East Germany over the Berlin Wall, young Honiga Milch and her mother and father are captured. Abused by the soldiers and expecting at the very least to be sentenced to a labour camp or, more probably, killed, Honiga's potential is recognised and she is taken away to be indoctrinated with communist ideals and trained as an agent. Years later, she is running a successful "health club" in West Berlin, where her skills are put to good use in the seduction and blackmail of diplomats and military personnel. Meanwhile, in the complex world of political and military diplomacy of a divided country and the divided City of Berlin, the thorny problem of Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy long incarcerated as the sole prisoner in Spandau Prison, remains. Now an old man, he may know secrets that would be highly embarrassing or, indeed, politically devastating if he were free to reveal them. The detail and the characters in this story are fictitious, but places, dates and times of the genuine events have been meticulously researched to provide a real backdrop to this story of what might have happened.