This is Brian Falkner at the top of his game — delivering tension, heart, and intelligence in equal measure.Falkner won a six-month residency in Berlin to write Spider Games in the City of Spies, and his lived experience of the city — and of Germany more broadly — is evident on every page. (I know this because I, too, visited Berlin when the Wall still stood and travelled into East Germany.)
The novel is mostly set in Berlin in 1999, just before the turn of the century, when fears about Y2K and a potential technological meltdown gripped the world. Chapter One opens earlier, in 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s visit to Berlin to urge East and West to tear down their walls. A sniper has been hired to assassinate the President — but the mission is sabotaged.
From Chapter Two onwards, the story leaps forward to 1999. Grandpa Joe is travelling to Berlin with his grandson, Nick, to scatter the ashes of his German-born wife at her favourite place — a location that fans of the Katipo Joe series will recognise. Readers will soon realise that Grandpa Joe is the teenage protagonist from that earlier series, now many years older.
When Grandpa Joe mysteriously disappears, Nick realises he is being followed and is in imminent danger. With no one else to trust, he turns to the only person he knows in Berlin — Rejhana, a tough, street-smart teenage orphan originally from Serbia. Before fleeing his grandfather’s flat, Nick discovers Joe’s journal, revealing his past as a spy during WWII and beyond, right up to 1987. Nick quickly understands that the journal is what the villains want — and keeping it safe becomes a dangerous game, especially when he is being hunted by secret police and the Russian KGB.
This is a high-stakes adventure filled with spies who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets. Nick is a deeply likeable protagonist — vulnerable, funny, and quietly brave. He must push past his autistic awkwardness to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, and if the world really is going to end on New Year’s Day 2000, he figures he may as well tick a few things off his bucket list.
Rejhana is Nick’s opposite: bold, impulsive, and fearless, having already endured more hardship than most teenagers should. She draws Nick out of his shell, teaching him how to take risks and embrace life fully, even when everything feels uncertain.
Spider Games in the City of Spies is a gripping, suspense-driven thriller that keeps readers guessing — and hoping — until the very end. With its ticking clock, global stakes, and two teenagers forced to attempt the impossible, the novel is fast-paced, cinematic, and compulsively readable. This is Brian Falkner at the top of his game — delivering tension, heart, and intelligence in equal measure.
Brian Falkner was born and raised in Auckland and is one of New Zealand’s most respected writers for children and young adults. He has written more than 27 novels, beginning with Henry and the Flea (2003), a book that signalled the arrival of a powerful new voice in children’s fiction. Several of his books have gone on to receive major recognition. Super Freak was nominated for the Junior Fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards, while The Tomorrow Code was shortlisted for both the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction and the LIANZA Children’s Book Awards. Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo won the Young Adult Fiction Award at the 2016 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and was also shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
Kids Books NZ
February 2026
