The Hill of Three Borders

Budapest, October 1956. Disillusioned by life behind the Iron Curtain, Morris Rose, a State Department official who defected to the Eastern Bloc in 1949, approaches the CIA and offers vital intelligence about Soviet spy networks in exchange for his return to the United States. Wary of being double-crossed, Rose insists on the involvement of his childhood friend, Dennis Collins, a veteran New York newsman, in his extraction from Hungary. 


Collins reluctantly agrees to help, but once in Budapest he discovers that the KGB is hunting Rose, and that the mission may have been compromised by a CIA mole. When Hungarians unexpectedly rise in revolt, and Red Army tanks encircle the city, Collins must engineer a breakout before it’s too late. 


The Hill of Three Borders skillfully recreates the heady atmosphere of the Hungarian uprising, when the world watched in wonder as the rebels of Budapest sought to bend the arc of history against long odds. This concluding novel in the First Trumpet trilogy tells a haunting story of love, courage, and redemption set in the darkest days of the early Cold War. 


Jefferson Flanders has been a sportswriter, columnist, editor, and publishing executive. He is the author of Café Carolina and Other Stories, of Herald Square, a novel of the Cold War described as “well-written, action packed and engrossing” in the Washington Times, and of The North Building.