The Human Pool

During the war, Joe Hoover worked for the American intelligence service. Karl-Heinz Strasse worked for the SS. The two should never have met, but they became the closest of associates, communicating in the supposedly neutral cities of Zurich, Istanbul and Budapest. In 1945, all the secrets were buried. But sixty years later, a man they thought was dead seems to have resurfaced. Willi Schmidt played both sides, dealing in intelligence, in black-market goods, in pharmaceuticals. When Hoover returns to Europe to try and track him down, he discovers that operations he thought had ended long ago are still being played out. At each step into his past, he is haunted by the shadow of Willi Schmidt and the spectre of WWII's most grotesque and enduring legacy - a trade in people. Chris Petit's masterly new novel turns the world inside out and traces its veins. THE HUMAN POOL interweaves fact and fiction to spellbinding effect, unpicking history and redefining our understanding of the way war and business merge.