The Feasts of Lesser Men

Germany, 1990: The Berlin Wall has fallen. East and West Germany are discussing reunification. After four and a half decades of cloak-and-dagger intrigue, the Cold War is coming to an end. Not for Jimmy Fisher, a plans clerk in the American 111th Infantry Division. Fisher black markets cigarettes, steals valuables from the dead, and takes advantage of every weakness he identifies in each living person he meets. Which makes him the perfect target for foreign agents seeking to buy documents. Forced to make life-or-death choices in an ever heightening conflict between his personal safety and the security of his country, Fisher flees to the Vosges Mountains of France with a woman he trusts. In time he learns that love is worthy of a greater conviction than loyalty to one's country, and that abstract symbols and arbitrary boundaries are not worth dying for.

Stephen Parrish served in Germany during the height of the Cold War. He is the author of The Tavernier Stones, published by Llewellyn/Midnight Ink.