The Death of Trotsky

The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin’s Greatest Enemy

Josh Ireland

$34.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

John Murray
01 March 2026

History; General & world history; History: earliest times to present day; Military history

THE PULSE-POUNDING TRUE STORY BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY

'The page-turning pace of a thriller . . . A first-class historian' ANDREW ROBERTS

'Breathtaking . . . This is lucid, kaleidoscopic history' RORY CARROLL

'Gripping . . .

Full of treachery, intrigue and betrayal' DAMIEN LEWIS

In August 1940, a man walked into Leon Trotsky's study in Mexico City and drove an ice pick into his skull. The killer? Ramon Mercader - an aristocratic Spaniard turned Soviet assassin. The mastermind? Joseph Stalin.

But this was no simple hit. It was the climax of a decade-long global hunt: a story of seduction and betrayal, of fake identities and secret loyalties, of idealists and fanatics, lovers and spies. While Trotsky raged in exile - still clinging to his revolutionary dream - Stalin's agents closed in. At the heart of it all was Mercader: a man trained to lie, charm and ultimately to kill.

Tracing a path from the cafes of Paris to the battlefields of Spain, from Stalin's Kremlin to a bloodied study in Mexico, The Death of Trotsky unfolds like a spy thriller - a story of obsession and betrayal, of dreams destroyed and loyalties twisted, culminating in one of the most shocking murders of the modern age.

'Hugely compelling' ROGER MOORHOUSE

'As good as any thriller' HELEN RAPPAPORT

By: Josh Ireland
Imprint: John Murray
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781399827300
ISBN 10: 1399827308
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 01 March 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Josh Ireland is a writer and editor. He lives in London and is the author of The Traitors (2017), an Observer book of the year, and Churchill & Son (2021), a Daily Telegraph book of the year. He has also ghosted a number of top-five Sunday Times bestsellers and written for the Daily Telegraph, Prospect, Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement.

Reviews for The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin’s Greatest Enemy

Mesmerising . . . A fascinating study of Trotsky . . . Equally a remarkable one about the paranoia and violent insanity that drove Stalin -- Robert Lyman, author of Victory to Defeat