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

Written by Stephan Talty

Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781721353507

Stephan Talty

Stephan Talty is the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Hand, The Good Assassin, 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.

Reviews for The Good Assassin

[Adir Puterman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Horrific and simultaneously exhilarating. The pursuit of a monstrous mass murderer alongside the chilling history of the Holocaust in Latvia is decidedly spellbinding. The author does an excellent job of using these two narratives to expose the discussion of the pursuit and prosecution of Nazis.

[ikeman100 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very good book. Little has been published in English about this small country and how it was affected by WWII. This book contains many tales which will be new to most readers. It is a wealth of information.There is interesting information about the history of Latvian aviation and their own version of Charles Linbergh. How the country was invaded by both Russia and Germany. What happened to Latvian Jews. How the Nation of Israel hunted down former NAZI mass murderers. And finally how Germany changed their law to allow continued prosecution of these NAZIs in 1965.