
The Coldest Winter is a Spy Fiction graphic novel written by Antony Johnston, illustrated in black and white by Steven Perkins. It's a prequel to The Coldest City, set almost a decade earlier and featuring several of the same characters.
It's January 1982 and Berlin is a divided city at the heart of The Cold War. At this time the cold is literal, with snow and ice isolating a frozen city. A Soviet agent breaks into a West Berlin safe house to kill a bandaged man.
Three weeks earlier, British agent David Perceval is told that his time in Berlin has been a failure, but he has one last job before he's sent home: an asset codenamed MEDICO is going to be in West Berlin for a science conference. Perceval is going to get him away from his Soviet handlers and help him defect.
Despite Perceval's protestations that the British safe houses are compromised and there'll be no way to get MEDICO out of the city, William Woodford, the Berlin Station Chief ("BER-1") insists that Perceval needs to make it happen. And so a scheme takes shape...
The Coldest Winter contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ascended Extra:
- Code Name:
- Dead Person Impersonation:
- Defector from Commie Land
- How We Got Here:
- Improvised Weapon:
- Mythology Gag:
- Prequel:
- Saved by Canon:
