The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia, Hardcover

The untold story of an Israeli spy's epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice--a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.

Before World War II, Herbert Cukurs was a famous figure in his small Latvian city, the "Charles Lindbergh of his country." But by 1945, he was the Butcher of Latvia, a man who murdered some thirty thousand Latvian Jews. Somehow, he dodged the Nuremberg trials, fleeing to South America after war's end.

By 1965, as a statute of limitations on all Nazi war crimes threatened to expire, Germany sought to welcome previous concentration camp commanders, pogrom leaders, and executioners, as citizens. The global pursuit of Nazi criminals escalated to beat the looming deadline, and Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, joined the cause. Yaakov Meidad, the brilliant Mossad agent who had kidnapped Adolf Eichmann three years earlier, led the mission to assassinate Cukurs in a desperate bid to block the amnesty. In a thrilling undercover operation unrivaled by even the most ambitious spy novels, Meidad traveled to Brazil in an elaborate disguise, befriended Cukurs and earned his trust, while negotiations over the Nazi pardon neared a boiling point.

The Good Assassin uncovers this little-known chapter of Holocaust history and the pulse-pounding undercover operation that brought Cukurs to justice.

STEPHAN TALTY is the best-selling author of The Black Hand, Agent Garbo, and A Captain's Duty. His books have been made into two films, the Oscar-winning Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. He's written for publications including the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Playboy. He lives outside New York City with his family.