Based on the experiences of David Baerwald’s grandfather, The Fire Agent: A Novel traces Ernst Baerwald’s life, from 19th-century German idealism to the dawn of the Cold War. A gifted linguist, musician, and idealist who was recruited to become a spy, he lived a courageous life – an adventure encompassing two continents, two world wars, and impossible choices that haunted him forever. Set in the gathering darkness of the rise of the Nazi Party in Berlin, John Mutter’s Fortune and Glass follows two people bound by forbidden desire and quiet resistance, trying to hold on to love and loyalty inside a society descending into authoritarian madness. A historically grounded, philosophical spy novel, it is both a love story and a meditation on moral choices. Moderating is author Lynne Barrett.