Jensen, an Englishman, finds himself drawn into clandestine affairs in a recently formed South American country. The People's Democratic Republic is a communist super-state comprising bits of Brazil, Argentina, and several other annexed nations, and governed by a mysterious "Great Leader" whose appearance and identity remain murky.

Recruited into a top-secret mission known as Operation Espada, Jensen is assigned the task of infiltrating the PDR and assassinating the Great Leader. To this end, he is given two covers. The first is Anton Petrov, a Belarusian. The second is Jensen Aggit, an engineer from Manchester. During his first foray into the country, he hopes to be captured, winning the trust of the regime as a supposed double agent. "If he could allow the regime to turn him," he reasons, "and return in one piece, it would mark the first time a Western operative returned from the PDR with reconnaissance." He would then meet with a fellow operative who would assist him in smuggling a weapon into the gun-free nation.

As these plans unfold, Jensen battles personal disappointments and losses. He has been a negligent father to his son, Peter, who, since the divorce, has taken to calling his nanny "mummy." He mourns the death of his beloved brother Alois, slain in combat twenty years before, and puzzles over his enigmatic parting words: "Meet me at the castle, by the lake, where the water is still, and time does not exist."

Having successfully found his way into the country, Jensen attends a public rally where the Great Leader is scheduled to speak. Throughout the ensuing monologue, he remains veiled in shadow, his face and form inscrutable—but then he turns towards Jensen, who at once recognizes a vanished figure from his past. The shock has hardly subsided when the leader motions Jensen towards him. "I know why you're here, Jens," he says. "They sent you to kill me."

Katsoulis has written a masterful espionage thriller in the vein of John LeCarré, with echoes of Chesterton's seminal spy novel The Man Who Was Thursday. Much effort has been made to create a fully realized alternate world reeking of rain and despair, in which even the loyalties of one's closest allies and lovers are brought into question. The novel astutely depicts how the egalitarian ideals communism aspires to fail in practice. The PDR, as one character notes, has become a kleptocracy in which one band of elites has replaced another, while the rest of the nation starves: "The revolution did one thing and one thing only—it put the rats in power." A subplot in which Jensen meets the Great Leader's wife, who conspicuously resembles a woman they both loved many years ago, bears echoes of Hitchcock's Vertigo. An early scene depicting the sudden appearance of a concierge "from a concealed wood-paneled door … like a magician making his debut" will no doubt remind readers of the famous introduction of Bergotte in the second volume of In Search of Lost Time. Katsoulis has written an inspired novel of recompense, regret and shattered ideals.

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