The Engineer By Jan Kusmirek

This is a powerful and compelling historical novel, the story of a young boy of Polish descent, born in Canada who is unable to escape the burden of history. Teddy Labden finds that try as he might he cannot escape his immigrant past and the mystery of his father's record in Eastern Europe. Whilst England draws him ever closer to her bosom Teddy meets a darker side of life full of connections and coincidences that lead him into the dangers of the Secret Service. When the fog of war interrupts his playboy existence Teddy begins to see that like a cog in a machine he can be used or he can become the engineer of events. Through a variety of affairs he looks for the love and affection that is missing in his life. But can he find it? His Polish upbringing forces him to take unexpected sides with consequences that put his life in danger from the Russian agents embedded in MI6. He becomes involved in the fringes of the political assassination of the Polish Prime Minister, but who gave the orders? Teddy is helped by a variety of friends to survive in a world of intrigue hidden from ordinary men and women. "The Engineer" is the first part of his trilogy which concerns events and personalities that moulded the lives of the ordinary people in Europe who sought no more than a better life through revolution and change in the twentieth century.