Death of Trotsky

Regular price €31.99
20th century history
A Spy Among Friends
A01=Josh Ireland
Adam Higginbotham
archival sources
assassination plot
assassination thriller
Author_Josh Ireland
Ben Macintyre
bestseller nonfiction history
Bloodlands
Bolsheviks
Caridad Mercader
Category=NHB
Category=NHW
Churchill and Son
Cold War narrative.
Cold War origins
Cold War thriller
communist history
Communist International
counterintelligence
death of Trotsky
Diego Rivera
double life
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Erik Larson
espionage case study
espionage thriller
exile in Mexico
fake identity
forthcoming
Frida Kahlo
global communism
gripping nonfiction
historical conspiracy
historical drama
historical nonfiction
historical spy story
historical suspense
ideological extremism
ideological struggle
international intrigue
Joseph Stalin
Josh Ireland
KGB
KGB origins
Killers of the Flower Moon
Lenin
Leon Trotsky
love and betrayal
Marxism
Mensheviks
Mercader
Mexican archives
Mexico 1940s
Mexico City history
Midnight in Chernobyl
narrative nonfiction
NKVD
Operation Mincemeat
Pablo Neruda
political assassination
political betrayal
political exile
political murder
political secrets
political violence
propaganda warfare
radical politics
Ramon Mercader
real-life thriller
Red Army
Red Terror
revolutionary biography
revolutionary history
revolutionary Russia
Russia 1930s
Russian dissidents
Russian Revolution
secret operations
secret police
Simon Sebag Montefiore
socialism
Soviet agents
Soviet exile
Soviet history
Soviet infiltration
Soviet spies
Soviet Union
Spanish Civil War
spy craft
spy nonfiction
Stalin
Stalin vs Trotsky
Stalin's assassins
Stalinist purge
subversive politics
Sylvia Ageloff
The Spy and the Traitor
The Traitors Josh Ireland
thriller nonfiction
Timothy Snyder
Trotsky assassination
true espionage story
true historical crime
true story of Trotsky
undercover agent
untold history
Young Stalin

Product details

  • ISBN 9781399827294
  • Dimensions: 156 x 240mm
  • Publication Date: 26 Feb 2026
  • Publisher: John Murray Press
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
Will Deliver When Available

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

THE PULSE-POUNDING TRUE STORY BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY

'The page-turning pace of a thriller . . . A first-class historian' ANDREW ROBERTS

'Breathtaking . . . This is lucid, kaleidoscopic history' RORY CARROLL

'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? Ramon 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 cafes 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

'As good as any thriller' HELEN RAPPAPORT
Josh Ireland is a writer and editor. He lives in London and is the author of The Traitors (2017), an Observer book of the year, and Churchill & Son (2021), a Daily Telegraph book of the year. He has also ghosted a number of top-five Sunday Times bestsellers and written for the Daily Telegraph, Prospect, Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement.