»The Foreign Spy« available in paperback

As of yesterday, »The Foreign Spy« is available in paperback. If you were on the fence about giving it a try, the price has now been greatly reduced. Never would I have anticipated that my novel would be so successful. Including audio books we have sold around 58,000 copies. My thanks to you all!

Amnon Weinstein has died

Amnon Weinstein, whose story is recounted by Christa Roth in our book, »Violins of Hope«, passed away in Tel Aviv in early March at the age of 86. Since the 1990s, he’d been restoring violins belonging to Holocaust victims in his Tel Aviv workshop. The instruments were then played in concerts all around the world, and thus given new life and voice. Christa had a good rapport with Amnon, whereas I met him only briefly. That said, I will never forget my encounter with his wife, Assi, whose family suffered horribly in the Holocaust and whose father, Asael Bielski, inspired the film »Defiance« based on his time fighting with the partisans. The violin I had selected for »Violins of Hope« had belonged to an inmate at the Dachau concentration camp before being restored by Assi’s husband, and Assi was in the audience to see it played in the City Library in Dachau. Prior to the reading, she had told me she did not want to come up on stage. Yet, at the end, she stood up and said, »I never wanted to return to Germany. But today, seeing classes of school children learning about the fates of individual victims of the Holocaust at the memorial site in the concentration camp, I was touched. My being here is a good thing.« Tears welled up in my eyes when I heard her say that. I experienced a similarly moving moment when I spoke to the daughter of the violinist from Dachau, that is, the daughter of Abram Merczynski, inmate no. 95101, who survived Dachau. (I named him Marek Krol in the novel.) I phoned her in New York City, and the longer we spoke, the quieter she became, until she finally said, »He never spoke about the concentration camp. Never. I’m sitting here, shaking and crying. Do you know why? There are pictures of my father everywhere in this house, and in each one, he’s holding a violin. The one thing that I do know, is that music saved his mental health.« After his liberation from the concentration camp, Abram Merczynski gave his violin to a 14-year-old boy named Julius, who lived in Munich with his family. Julius is now an old man himself, and he told me about his friendship with Abram. Julius had passed the violin on to a German luthier, who had sent it to Amnon in Israel. Amnon Weinstein’s vital work with the »Violins of Hope« will be carried on by his son, Avshi.

The 1000th Reading

My 1000th reading will be held tomorrow in the City Library in Zwickau. For more than twenty years, I have enjoyed holdings these engaging readings. I offer my gratitude to all of the organizers, and to my audiences, who have listened to me, laughed, posed interesting questions, and made these evenings so lively and pleasurable.

The View from the Window in My Childhood Home

How much autobiographical content is hidden in novels? More than you might think! For example, in »The Last Mission« Annie lives in my childhood home, an apartment located at Eichhorster Straße 8 in Berlin-Marzahn. You can see the photograph taken from the window in my room. We moved to Berlin from Magdeburg. In Magdeburg, I could lie in the meadow in front of the house and listen to the leaves rustling in the three poplar trees that grew there. Now, my view was of high-rises and signage like »No playing ball games in the gateway!« My brothers and I wandered out of the city to a forest, where an old cemetery was located. We set up garden beds, and proudly brought home parsley and chives. Until out mother learned where the herbs had been grown ...

Research on Mount Olympus

»Your Tracks in the Snow« also contains autobiographical events. Like Stefan, I fell in love in a library (though I was seventeen). And I also climbed up to the Profitis Elias peak, 2803 meters above sea level on Mount Olympus, and visited the highest Christian Chapel in the Balkans: a simple hut made of flat stones. You can see my shaky video here.

Your Tracks in the Snow

The first snowfall isn’t quite upon us; however, I have already bought gloves and eaten Lebkuchen. It is therefore time to introduce my new winter story, »Your Tracks in the Snow«. In the quiet of the library, Stefan works on his portfolio for his art courses. When he encounters Lenja there, he doesn’t dare approach. Instead, he draws her. The two get to know each other and Lenja takes him, an atheist, to her church. She does warn him, however, “Don’t expect that God will be presented to you.” Lenja’s community doesn’t believe that the relationship has a future: they are simply too different. Yet when Lenja suffers a life crisis, Stefan resolves on the spot to rediscover the beauty of faith for her.

In the German Parliament

I visited the German Parliament building today for the vigil for the 70th anniversary of the East German Uprising on 17 June 1953. The presentation was moderated by Evelyn Zupke. Readers of my novel, »The Last Mission« will know Evelyn Zupke as a member of the Weißensee Peace Circle who initiated and organized the election monitoring on 7 May 1989, which exposed electoral fraud. (I believe that our telephone conversations, conducted while I was writing the novel, are the reason that I was allowed to be there.)

Moving moments:

(1) Contemporary witnesses reported on what they experienced on 17 June. I was profoundly touched by one of the women present in the Parliament building today, who was 14 years old at the time. She remembered a 15-year-old boy accused of ripping a poster down in the city center, for which he was detained, and then shot at an unknown location. In 1953, the police merely handed his parents the funeral urn. She went on to describe the wave of arrests following the protests: 12,000 people were detained, death sentences were handed down. The joyous hope that something might change, withered into cold fear in the days following the uprising.

(2) Frank-Walter Steinmeier drew parallels between the insurgents’ fight for self determination and freedom back then in the GDR and today in Ukraine, where they are defending themselves against a Russian invasion.

(3) In addition, Steinmeier made explicitly clear how off the mark he finds those unconventional thinkers, who claim that we live in a dictatorship. He reminded the audience about those times, when everyone in the GDR had to be careful about what they said on the telephone, when it was better to remain silent, than to speak in stairwells, and to lower their voices when at the pub.

(4) At the end, the officials (and we, their guests) sang the national anthem, not joyfully, but rather mournfully, yet also somewhat defiantly. And I was happy to live in a reunified Germany, and proud of our Parliament.

This evening in Kleinmachnow, I will hold a public reading from »Day X«, and remember that democracy and freedom are not to be taken for granted.

With the Morgenpost at the Brandenburg Gate

Today in the Berliner Morgenpost. On Thursday, I was en route to the Brandenburg Gate with Peter Zander, editor, and a congenial photographer. We were talking about my new novel. How excited I am to hear their opinion on it, and that the newspaper has published such an extensive article on it. Peter Zander wrote about feeling »goosebumps on his goosebumps« and praised it as »superbly researched. Even long-term residents of Berlin and those born in the city will learn details they’d never heard before. Our own city literally appears in a new light.«

»The Last Mission« Rises to 11th Place

The success of the series is now complete. Following »The Foreign Spy« (18th place) and »The Second Secret« (15th place), »The Last Mission« has risen to 11th place on the Spiegel best seller list. How marvelous!

Interview in a 70s Era Room

Lutz Langer interviewed me for »Hauptsache Lesen!« [Essential Reading] at the prop warehouse for Babelsberg Film Studios – in a room from the 70s, very fitting for the novel. If the reason Erich Honecker visted the prison in Brandenburg-Görden every year, or his involvement with the green arrow on our traffic lights, and what was contained in the »flight prevention bags« carried by the GDR border soldiers intrigue you, you’re in luck, since we spoke about those topics, among others, in the interview.

I had previously wandered through the warehouse holding the props and had discovered a few things. Who recognizes these pencil sharpeners? I enjoyed playing with one in my father’s office. The opening could so easily “eat” pencils, when you pinched the knobs together. Or it ate my finger. I still remember exactly how those metal teeth felt.

If you clamped a pencil in it and cranked the handle on the back, the shavings would collect in a little drawer. Much more practical, actually, than the sharpeners my children currently use in school.

Each shelf in the properties building is dedicated to different everyday items. You can find old televisions, radios, dishes, or clothing. Old book bags filled one shelf.

These bags weren’t exactly like the one that I had, but the clasps and the beige leather brought back memories ... At some point, the leather delaminated and the ends of the narrow shoulder straps felt like chapped elephant hide.

And I also found our telephone from back then. Except that the green color was somewhat faded. If you dialed zero, then you had to wait for a really long time for the dial to reach the starting position again so you could dial the next digit. And there were no redial options. If the line was busy, you had to call back five minutes later, painstakingly redialing every digit.

»The Second Secret« Has Made the List

»The Second Secret« has risen to 15th place on the Spiegel bestseller list. I am over the moon! If you haven’t read the first book in the series, »The Foreign Spy« is available for a special rate of 5.99 Euros until the end of May. The physical book is naturally nicer.

The Chief Historian of German Federal Intelligence Service (BND)

The chief historian of the BND read my spy novel ... and liked it! He even reviewed it for CrimeMag. You can probably imagine how excited I was about this review. Bodo Hechelhammer has been employed by the Federal Intelligence Service since 2002, where he has worked in various intelligence-related applications. Starting in 2016, he became head of the agency’s historical office, where he moved from practice to the theoretical, so to speak. He is currently chief historian of the BND. Over the years, he has published interesting non-fiction books about the intelligence services, for example, about the double agent, Heinz Felfe, or about the BND headquarters in Pullach. These have been a great help for my own novels. There were also other fabulous reviews of »The Foreign Spy«, for example, the one that appeared in the Berliner Morgenpost (see image).

»Titus Müller brings a part of German-German history so tangibly to life that it touches the heart. Yet he does so in a way that is fresh, vivid, and also empathetic. This alone would make the book a special reading experience, but there’s more. It is also unbelievably exciting!« – Kerstin Burlage, Bremen2 »Like always, Müller has done exacting research [...]. His contemporary historical novel is quite exciting. The experience feels up close and personal.« – Peter Zander, Berliner Morgenpost »An instructive novel that is well worth reading, beyond black and white outlines.« – Meike Dannenberg, BÜCHER »An exciting piece of post-war history, brilliantly written from one of the great, contemporary authors.« – Beate Rottgardt, Ruhr Nachrichten »Ria is a heroine who will remain forever in your heart. Beautiful, clever, and courageous above everything else. A woman who dares.« – Lutz Langer, HAUPTSTADT TV

60 Years Ago

60 years ago, the citizens of Berlin were awakened by a cacophony of jackhammers. Streets were torn up, cement posts were set into place. Over night, barbed wire split their city into two separate halves. People they had visited the day before – relatives, friends, work colleagues – were suddenly so removed from their lives, that it was if they now lived on a different planet. This is the narrative background for my novel, »The Foreign Spy«.

On the Bestseller List

»The Foreign Spy« climbed to 18th place on the Spiegel bestseller list, which means it has earned the red bestseller sticker. Thank you for your support and desire and curiosity in reading! I am enormously chuffed that so many have discovered this novel. When writing it, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything differently than how I normally write, which means that this topic must resonate well with current times. The sales team at Heyne Publishing Company has done excellent work, and then it was up to the booksellers, and you.

Press Reviews for »Day X«

»There are few books which are such a pleasure and so beneficial to read.« Marcela Drumm, SWR2 »Exciting historical drama [..] The fast-paced and thrilling way in which Müller plays with reality is not far from the tragic truth.« Steffen Könau, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung »Hollywood, please turn this into a film!« Grazia »Titus Müller is a lively and at the same time very precise narrator. Recently published by Blessing Verlag, his novel paints a clear picture of recent German history for the reader.« Cornelia Geissler, Berliner Zeitung

»The Spectacle Maker«

Published in Spain by Espasa Calpe: In 1387, spectacle making is an extremely difficult task and only a few masters can command this skill. As masters of sight, spectacle makers have power where swords would fail. Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, understands their importance: he wants to use them to crush the secret society of the Cloaked Knights because they are hiding Hereford, the outlawed professor who is illegally translating the bible into English. But Elias Rowe, one of the best spectacle makers, refuses to support Courtenay’s cause. When Elias’ young wife, Catherine, finds him dead in his workshop one morning, she is thrust into the power struggle between the archbishop and the secret society. All she wants to do is to learn her husband’s craft in order to find his murderers, instead, she could end up as collateral in a bloody war.

»The Jesuits« Published in Spain

And what a gripping cover have they given my novel! It shows the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The story: Antero Moreira de Mendonça, a young natural scientist, has long hated the Jesuits. In 1755, an earthquake of biblical proportions strikes Lisbon and the Jesuits use the destruction as an opportunity to preach about the wrath of God. The quake also provides Antero with a chance for avenging himself on the Order. But Gabriel Malagrida, the Jesuit leader revered as a prophet, proves to be a powerful enemy. With help from Leonor, a German merchant’s daughter, Antero succeeds in escaping from the dungeon and the hangman. But what Antero doesn’t know is that Leonor is among Malagrida’s followers. Who holds the keys to Leonor’s heart – Antero or her fellow believers?

»The Mystery« in the Netherlands

De Fontain has published my novel »The Mystery« in the Netherlands. Munich 1336. Nemo is a master of disguise. He has every reason to conceal his true identity because he bears a dangerous secret: the legacy of the Cathars. However, Nemo’s past catches up with him when Amiel of Ax comes to Munich. Amiel is the charismatic head of a secret church spreading through Munich's underground. Now the Inquisition and William of Ockham, the renowned English Franciscan friar and confidant of the German emperor, are willing to join forces to destroy Amiel. Nemo is caught between the two fronts, thus initiating a dramatic fight about the sacred legacy. The Mystery is not only a gripping read, but also a journey into a fascinating past. The novel is based on historic persons and facts.