Description
DATE OF RELEASE: 26 FEB 2026
THE PULSE-POUNDING TRUE STORY BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY
'Breathtaking . . . This is lucid, kaleidoscopic history' RORY CARROLL
'As good as any thriller' HELEN RAPPAPORT
'Gripping . . . Full of treachery, intrigue and betrayal' DAMIEN LEWIS
In August 1940, a man walked into Leon Trotsky's study in Mexico City and drove an ice pick into his skull. The killer? Ramón Mercader - an aristocratic Spaniard turned Soviet assassin. The mastermind? Joseph Stalin.
But this was no simple hit. It was the climax of a decade-long global hunt: a story of seduction and betrayal, of fake identities and secret loyalties, of idealists and fanatics, lovers and spies. While Trotsky raged in exile - still clinging to his revolutionary dream - Stalin's agents closed in.
At the heart of it all was Mercader: a man trained to lie, charm and ultimately to kill. Tracing a path from the cafés of Paris to the battlefields of Spain, from Stalin's Kremlin to a bloodied study in Mexico, The Death of Trotsky unfolds like a spy thriller - a story of obsession and betrayal, of dreams destroyed and loyalties twisted, culminating in one of the most shocking murders of the modern age.
'Hugely compelling' ROGER MOORHOUSE
Hardback, Publication: 26 Feb 2026, John Murray
ISBN: 9781399827294, Extent: 384 pages
