Spies of the Balkans

During the summer of 1940, despite the war raging in Europe, a tense political drama was being played out in Salonika. Northern Greece, Macedonian Greece and Balkan Greece were at war with Italy, and eventually Germany and Bulgaria, over access to the sea. Adolf Hitler had plans for northern Greece, and the people of Salonika were concerned about what would happen to their city. At the center of this drama was Costa Zannis, a senior police official. Zannis's office handled special political cases. As war approached that summer, spies from various factions arrived in the city; there was a British travel writer and a Bulgarian undertaker, among others. Manolis Andronikos wrote that novel as well as its predecessor, The Traveller's Companion.