Stacking the Shelves

After years of excuses, Tess has finally agreed to go caving with her best friend Alma. Their lives have diverged sharply since high school—Alma is a self-made travel influencer, while Tess is a shy (and claustrophobic) legal assistant struggling to pay for law school. Maybe she’s a little jealous of Alma’s globe-trotting life. Who wouldn’t be?

As Tess and Alma descend into the depths, they realize they’re not alone. A stranger who claims to be a fellow caver harasses them. Confident, take-no-shit Alma insults the guy—and he retaliates. Soon, Tess is trapped inside a narrow crawl space hundreds of feet underground, fighting to stay alive.

Twenty-four hours later, as a hospitalized Tess recounts her harrowing story of survival, the detective interviewing her shares new and shocking secrets about Alma’s true past. Together, they begin to suspect the brutal attack wasn’t so random after all.

Who was Alma, really? Why did this man target them? And did Tess really leave the danger behind when she escaped the cave?

This is the astonishing story of the ten million books that US intelligence smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

From copies of Orwell to Agatha Christie, the Western effort was to undermine the censorship of the Soviet bloc, offer different visions of thought and culture to the people, and build relationships with real readers in the East.

Historian Charlie English follows the characters of the era, with Bucharest-born George Minden at the narrative’s heart. Tasked with masterminding the effort, Minden understood both sides. He was opposed to the intellectual straightjacket created by the communist system, but he also resented the Americans’ patronising tone – the people weren’t fooled by what their puppet governments were saying, but they did need culture, diversity of thought, entertainment, art, reassurance and solidarity. This is how the perilous mission to bring books as beacons of hope played out, told in riveting detail.