A pulse-pounding true story of espionage, betrayal and murder - tracing the long hunt that led from the Kremlin to Mexico City, and ending in one of the most infamous assassinations of the 20th century.
'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? 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
'As good as any thriller' HELEN RAPPAPORT
This is a true espionage thriller with historical stakes - a tale of spies, seduction and murder that reads like fiction - but every word is true. Before the Cold War officially began, Stalin launched a global manhunt that ended with an ice pick in Mexico. This is real-life Le Carré meets Killing a Commendatore.
Everyone knows the ending. Few know how it happened. The Death of Trotsky reveals the decade-long pursuit behind one of history's most famous assassinations - charting the rise of Ramón Mercader from idealistic Spaniard to Soviet killer.
Drawing on Mexican police files, FBI archives and untranslated memoirs, Josh Ireland uncovers new dimensions to a familiar myth. This is the first English-language book to tell the full story of both assassin and victim.
Stylish, gripping, and richly researched, The Death of Trotsky sits squarely alongside the work of Macintyre, Montefiore, and Erik Larson.
Josh Ireland is already critically acclaimed for Churchill & Son and The Traitors. This is his most dramatic, commercial project yet - poised to break out to a broader readership.
Author Biography
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.
The Death of Trotsky : The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy
€22.90
For fans of Ben Macintyre and Erik Larson, the gripping story of the assassination of Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky and the deadly game of cat and mouse that preceded it.
This is a true espionage thriller with historical stakes - a tale of spies, seduction and murder that reads like fiction - but every word is true. Drawing on Mexican police files, FBI archives and untranslated memoirs, Josh Ireland uncovers new dimensions to a familiar myth. Stylish, gripping, and richly researched, this is the first English-language book to tell the full story of both assassin and victim.
On August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky invited a man he knew only as Jacques Mornard into his study. Mornard waited for Trotsky to sit, then smashed an ice pick he had hidden in his raincoat into Trotsky’s skull.
For over a decade, Trotsky’s greatest enemy, Joseph Stalin, had been trying to arrange his murder. Stalin’s agents had hunted him across Europe and into a lonely, bitter exile in Mexico. He had liquidated Trotsky’s family and friends, and yet Trotsky had always escaped his clutches. The man who changed this all was Ramón Mercader, a minor Spanish aristocrat and Soviet agent who had posed as Mornard, a dissolute Belgian playboy, and infiltrated Trotsky’s inner circle.
In The Death of Trotsky, Josh Ireland traces the separate paths walked by each of these protagonists as they steadily draw closer and closer to that fateful encounter on August 20. Blending intimate historical detail and thrilling historical narrative, swinging from Moscow to Paris to Mexico, and taking in a cast of morally conflicted Russian spies, fanatical Mexican painters, and innocent American idealists, The Death of Trotsky delves into the lives of two fascinating, complex men locked in a life-or-death struggle that would bend the course of history.
Product Information
- Author: Josh Ireland
- Language: Angļu valoda
- Year of publication: 2026
- Manufacturer: John Murray Press
- Cover type: Soft cover
- Number of pages: 384
- ISBN code: 9781399827300
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