Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Los Alamos | 1997 | Buy |
| The Prodigal Spy | 1998 | Buy |
| The Good German | 2001 | Buy |
| Alibi | 2005 | Buy |
| Stardust | 2009 | Buy |
| Istanbul Passage | 2012 | Buy |
| Leaving Berlin | 2014 | Buy |
| Defectors | 2017 | Buy |
| The Accomplice | 2019 | Buy |
| The Berlin Exchange | 2022 | Buy |
| Shanghai | 2024 | Buy |
Joseph Kanon writes spy novels that happen to be literary fiction, or literary fiction that happens to involve espionage. His books are set in the shadow of World War II and the early Cold War, in places where old loyalties are dissolving and new ones haven’t formed yet. Los Alamos (1997), his debut, is a murder mystery set inside the Manhattan Project. The Good German (2001) drops a journalist into the ruins of postwar Berlin.
Kanon was a book publishing executive before he became a novelist, and his prose reflects that background: careful, polished, and attuned to how stories are constructed. His characters tend to be people caught between competing powers, forced to decide what they’re willing to betray and what they’ll protect. The settings change from book to book, but the moral terrain stays the same.
His eleven novels span from 1997 to 2024, with Shanghai being the most recent. Each one is standalone, though readers who start with Los Alamos will notice recurring themes: the cost of secrets, the compromises intelligence work demands, and the way war changes everyone it touches.