Fergusson has already won two awards for this gripping and atmospheric debut, a thriller set amid the rubble of a defeated Berlin in 1945...Original and highly accomplished' Sunday Times

Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2015

Berlin, 1946. Everything is in short supply. Including the truth.

The war is over, but Berlin is a desolate sea of rubble. There is a shortage of everything: food, clothing, tobacco. The local population is scrabbling to get by. Kasper Meier is one of these Germans, and his solution is to trade on the black market to feed himself and his elderly father. He can find anything that people need, for the right price.

When a young woman, Eva, arrives at Kasper's door seeking the whereabouts of a British pilot, he feels a reluctant sympathy for her but won't interfere in military affairs. But Eva knows Kasper has secrets, and she'll use them to get what she wants. As a net of deceit, lies and betrayal falls around him, Kasper begins to understand that the seemingly random killings of members of the occupying forces are connected to his own situation. He must work out who is behind Eva's demands, and why...

A gripping literary thriller that will captivate fans of Joseph Kanon and Hans Fallada.

Readers are saying:

'A remarkable, dark, deep and disturbing novel'

'Brilliantly realised both in the evocation of Berlin and in the story line. Both poignant and thrilling'

'What an amazing book - I was engrossed'

'A terrific novel. Thoughtful, powerful writing serving an original and compelling plot'

'Utterly enthralling'

- Consumer marketing activity to position The Spring of Kasper Meier as the first 'breakout' success of 2015 - Content-driven social media campaign with exclusive author material - Blog-tour around publication - Massive nationwide reading group promotion

About the Author
Ben Fergusson's debut novel, The Spring of Kasper Meier, was awarded the Betty Trask Prize and the HWA Debut Crown, and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. The Other Hoffmann Sister and An Honest Man complete a trilogy of novels set in the same apartment block in Berlin at key moments in the city's twentieth-century history. His short fiction has been published in journals internationally and in 2020 he won the Sean O'Faolain International Short Story Prize. He also translates from German, winning a 2020 Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation. Ben lives in Berlin with his husband and son.

Reviews
Beguiling, unsettling, and wonderfully atmospheric. A dark expedition across a nightmarish landscape of physical and emotional damage and moral decay * Sarah Waters *
The finest thing in the novel is the imaginative recreation of time and place, the bombed and ruined city over which the past hangs darkly, where no possible future can yet be envisaged . . . A decidedly accomplished first novel . . . where the keenness of observation and the rhythms of the prose call Graham Greene to mind -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *
Similarly intelligent is Ben Fergusson's The Spring of Kasper Meier . . . the real coup here is the evocation of a minatory, crazy-quilt 1940s Berlin * Independent *
A truly outstanding work of fiction that will, I hope enter into the canon of English literature. It takes the known tragedies of the Second World War and extends them into what was, for most of the judges, an unknown arena: Berlin in the immediate aftermath of war, when the city was in ruins and the rubble gangs foraged for survival. The reality of it, the horror, was visceral and yet told with an immense and compassionate beauty. It's a masterpiece. To have written it as a first novel is an exceptional achievement * Manda Scott *
Fergusson has already won two awards for this gripping and atmospheric debut, a thriller set amid the rubble of a defeated Berlin in 1945...What follows is original and highly accomplished * Sunday Times *
The plot is tight, but it's the unflinching depiction of a desperate world in post-war Berlin, conveyed in beautiful prose, that makes this thriller so powerful * Sunday Mirror *
A superbly atmospheric novel with a thrilling suspenseful storyline running through it. Amid the rubble of post-war Berlin, characters scrabble to survive and to rebuild shattered lives. Damage is on view everywhere - devastated buildings, people damaged physically, psychologically and emotionally, legal and social structures in ruins . . . Ben Fergusson's grittily evocative novel, historically knowledgeable and piercing in its scrutiny of morally ambiguous characters, political murkiness and a world quivering with suspicion and jeopardy, impressively recalls Graham Greene's The Third Man -- Peter Kemp
Fergusson's debut portrays the desperation of Berlin and its people at a time when a murder could go unnoticed. The plot grows more gripping as the reader navigates its surprising twists and turns * Sunday Express *
A formidable first novel - I loved it -- Tania Findlay * Sun *
A powerful evocation of shattered lives trying to reconnect - and a heartbreaking story of the pain of compassion -- Jake Arnott, bestselling author of The Long Firm
A gripping mystery set in a surreal and terrifying post-war Berlin where nothing is quite what it seems. I loved it -- William Ryan, author of The Korolev Mysteries series
A moody-blue, grimly atmospheric novel exploring amorality and survival in a frightening, unsettling, post-war city -- Michele Roberts
What I loved about this book were two things above all: firstly, a moment in time and place - devastated post-war Berlin - in which things were done that one knew nothing about, and were shocking. Secondly, he brought Kasper and Eva and the others' experience to pungent physical life with his sensual description of sight, sound, and above all smell. It was real on the page. A great achievement and a tremendous debut -- Tim Pears, author of In The Light of Morning
A hauntingly evocative tale of post-war Berlin and the heartbreak and mysteries war leaves in its wake -- Mike Gayle
If reviews are any guide to the quality of crime novels (and one fervently hopes they are) then Ben Fergusson must have been pleased about the notices that his novel The Spring of Kasper Meier received; notices that marked him out as a writer of genuine accomplishment * Good Book Guide *
Fergusson has already won two awards for this gripping and atmospheric debut, a thriller set amid the rubble of a defeated Berlin in 1945...What follows is original and highly accomplished' * Sunday Times *


Awards
Short-listed for Betty Trask Award 2015 (UK) and HWA Debut Crown Award 2015 (UK) and The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award 2015 (UK). Long-listed for Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2015 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9780349139760
Author Ben Fergusson
Format Paperback
Page Count 400
Imprint Abacus
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 276g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 27mm